Cold Oven Pound Cake with Crushed Strawberries

The kids and I had this for supper this evening:

Brad happened to be gone so I just cooked up a bunch of veggies from the garden and served some cheese along side. The meal was delicious (thought I) but I knew that the kids would not be thrilled.

So I made a cake for dessert. I wanted to use the last of the strawberries in an extravagant fashion and we were not disappointed.

I cut this recipe out of the Lancaster Farming paper. It’s a weekly newspaper full of things that farmers like to read…ads for tractors and equipment and articles about anything concerning agriculture. There is a section for the cooks in the family, too: recipes and a food question/answer part. I always look forward to that section, especially this month. June is dairy month and lots of people submit their favorite dairy recipes.

Anyway, I cut this cake recipe out two weeks ago and figured it would make the perfect base for strawberries. With all of that butter, sugar, and cream cheese, it sure was extravagant! And it was a good way to use up a bit of the cream cheese I made a few weeks ago.

From the words of Joy, the recipe contributor, “This is the pound cake that tastes like the kind “grandma” use to make!”

Cold Oven Pound Cake

Adapted from Joy Timmons’ recipe in The Lancaster Farming, June 2013

Note: I made a third batch of this and got a small cake out of it. I didn’t want a large loaf.

3 sticks butter

3 cups sugar

8 oz cream cheese

6 eggs

1 t vanilla extract

3 cups unbleached flour

Cream the butter, sugar, and cream cheese until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and then the flour. Pour into two parchment-lined loaf pans (I used 4 x 8-inchers). Slide the cakes into a COLD oven and set the temp for 300 degrees F. Set the timer for 1 hour and 20 minutes. Check the cakes. You may need to give them a little more time. They should be golden brown around the edges and a toothpick should come out clean. Remove them from the pans when they are finished baking and cool on a wire rack.

Yield: 2 loaf cakes

Crushed Strawberries

This recipes hails from the Mennonite Community Cookbook. It originally called for 1 full cup of sugar. I figured if I put all of that in, I might as well just spread jam on my cake!

2 cups well crushed fresh strawberries

1/4 cup sugar

Stir to dissolve sugar. Refrigerate a few hours to chill thoroughly. Serve over ice cream, cake, or breakfast carbs of your choice.

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Strawberry Shortcake

A favorite spring-time supper of mine. I grew up eating this alone for supper at least twice during strawberry season.

Shortcake means different things to different people. Some make a biscuit and serve it with berries and sweetened cream. My dad grew up with a sponge cake as shortcake. What I remember from my childhood resembles this recipe here, though my mom said this isn’t the exact one she made.

To me, shortcake is a lightly sweetened yellow cake which should be topped with sugared strawberries and fresh, cold milk. Yum!

Strawberry Shortcake

Adapted from Mennonite Community Cookbook

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1 t vanilla

2 T butter, melted

Strawberries (sweetened if desired, for serving)

Cold milk (for serving)

Mix the flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the milk, eggs, and vanilla until mostly mixed. Add the butter and mix until evenly combined. Pour into a greased 9-inch round pan. Bake at 350 for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Serve warm or cooled with milk and strawberries.

Serves: about 4-6 for a main dish, 8 or 10 as a dessert

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Rhubarb Strawberry Pie

I love me some rhubarb.

A couple of years ago I was complaining to my grandma that there weren’t very many rhubarb recipes in my cookbooks. Well, she up and gave me one of her cookbooks. Bless her! I love it, too. It’s not a pretty picture cookbook but one of those small-town books in which the recipes are submitted by home cooks. There are about half a dozen recipes titled “rhubarb pie” and then dozens more with different flavor variations. There are probably four “rhubarb strawberry pies”.

I chose this pie because it only had a half cup of sugar in the ingredient list. It is not very sweet. If the thought of tart rhubarb makes your mouth draw up, go ahead and add more sugar. We like it this way, though, so I haven’t tried it sweeter.

Rhubarb Strawberry Pie

Adapted from Exclusively Rhubarb Cookbook edited by Sondra Astor Stave

2 1/2 – 3 cups chopped rhubarb (I used fresh)

1/2 cup sugar

1 t lemon zest

3 T (scant) minute tapioca

1/4 t salt

2 cups strawberries (I used frozen unsweetened…partially thawed)

3/8 cup pie crumbs

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust

Stir together the rhubarb, sugar, zest, tapioca, and salt. Let sit 15 minutes. Stir in the strawberries. Pour fruit into the pie crust and sprinkle the crumbs evenly over top.

Bake the pie in a preheated 450 oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350 and bake another 30 – 45 minutes or until it’s bubbly and the filling is thick. Cool completely. Delicious served alone or with ice cream or lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Yield: 1 9-inch pie

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Spring Omelet

This was delicious. Even Tage, who despises mushrooms right now, gobbled one up and proudly proclaimed, “Mommy, I eated my musswoms!”

The asparagus is starting to pop up. Usually at the beginning of the season, there’s only 2 or 3 stalks to pick each day. This was the first picking…3 tiny stalks. Not much good for serving as a side dish but perfect for omelets! I also grabbed a few leaves of volunteer kale and spinach. The mushrooms were locally grown. Half of the cheese was made locally. The eggs were from my chickens. Unfortunately I ran out of onions two weeks ago so the one I used were from who-knows-where but I’d still call this a local (and yummy!) breakfast!

Spring Omelet

Per omelet:

1 egg, beaten with a spritz of water and dash of salt

2 spinach leaves, chopped

1 kale leaf, chopped

1 stalk asparagus, finely chopped

1 small mushroom, finely chopped

1 t minced onion

2 T grated cheese

butter

Saute the veggies in a bit of butter until greens are wilted and asparagus is crisp tender. Set aside.

Melt a bit of butter in a small (I use an 8-inch) cast iron or non-stick skillet and heat over medium-low until a drop of water sizzles when dropped in. Pour in the beaten egg and cook until almost set. Sprinkle half of the circle with cheese and veggies, bring the other half of the omelet over top the veggies, and cook a few more seconds if you don’t think the eggs are set enough. I like mine to be just barely set. Browned scrambled eggs are kind of nasty, I think. Remove the omelet from the skillet and serve immediately.

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Coleslaw

Confession: I NEVER measure when I cook. Bake, yes, but cook, no. I am probably not the best one to have a food blog. I write down all of these measurements for you and yet, I really just throw things together and then make an educated guess as to how much it was. I hope things turn out ok when you make them. Please tell me if something just does not seem right.

That aside, here’s my go-to coleslaw recipe these days. I really have no idea how much mayonnaise and sugar I used. I hope these proportions turn out a tasty result if you should decide to try it.

I especially like the black pepper in this recipe. I had never thought to use it in coleslaw but I really think it makes a difference.

This recipe hails from an aunt of mine. She once made the most delicious coleslaw at a family get together. I asked her for her recipe and of course SHE never measures either. So she told me what she threw together and this is what I have come up with. I still think her version was tastier but it’s probably because I can’t bring myself to put in more sugar. And if I remember correctly, she used celery, too. So go ahead and make those changes if you want.

Coleslaw

Recipe adapted from Aunt Shirley’s

6 – 8 cups thinly sliced cabbage (like, really thinly sliced)

2 cups shredded carrot (1 huge carrot ought to do it)

3/4 cup real mayonnaise

3 T sugar

1 T red wine vinegar

1/2 t salt

1/4 t freshly ground black pepper

Mix everything together. It’s good immediately but I like it best if refrigerated for an hour or so…gives it time for the flavors to meld. I even love this leftover the next day for lunch, if it lasts that long.

Serves: probably 8 but we usually scarf it down in one meal

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