'Tis the Season - Cranberry Spice Cake

It's funny how food-moody I get. I was flipping through all the recipes that I have torn out of magazines, and I kept and looking at the summer-y recipes, like tomato salads and berry pies, etc, which just don't sound good to me. I am craving hearty, spicy, holiday-y tastes. I have been consuming a scary amount of mulled drinks and rich food and this past weekend was no different. I was going to a small holiday fete at a friends and decided to bring along a little something more than just my usual bottle of wine. I found a recipe that I tore out a year ago for a Cranberry Spice Cake which sounded like it had all the perfect components for a holiday treat (cranberries, citrus, spices and sugar).

I will preface this post by saying that there is no photo of the actual "finished" cake because by the time the glaze set it was dark out, I was late and I am happy to report that it was gobbled up before I had a chance to photograph it. Instead you get a photo of a pseudo-complete cake.

 To make the cake:

Combine 1 1/2 cups AP flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, generous pinch of salt, heavy dash of nutmeg, 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda in a bowl. Next, pulse cranberries until they are roughly chopped, set aside.
Stir 2/3 cup dark brown sugar, 2/3 cup white sugar and 1/2 cup canola oil together. Add in 2 eggs, one at a time, mixing completely. Then whisk in 1/2 cup sour cream, the zest of one or two oranges, the zest of one lemon and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
Now, in 3 additions alternate stirring in your dry ingredients and 1/3 cup apple cider. To finish, fold in the cranberries and pour into a parchment lined cake pan (I used an 8-inch round). Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour.

Remove the cake from the oven and while it is cooling mix 1 cup powdered sugar, the zest of one lemon, the juice of 1/2 a lemon (maybe a little more) and a pinch of salt. Once the cake is cooled drizzle the glaze over the top. Let the glaze set and dig in. This cake was terrifically moist and tasty and not too sweet, thanks to the citrus (which I like). Bon Appétit served theirs with a citrus cranberry compote that sounds delicious but I didn't make. I wanted to save my  cranberries to try make a shrub! I will have to save that for a later post.

Here is an article from Ms. Irene Virbila about shrubs, just to pique your interest.

For the original recipe, without my tweaks - click here.

after a brief holiday hiatus . . . I'm back . . . with Quinoa!

Happy New Year!

Starting the year on the right foot - I am attempting to explore some healthy recipes (I don't want to get ahead of myself - I will still be enjoying my butter-y baked goods and cheesy mashed potatoes). We had a nice crab dinner accompanied by mushroom quinoa.
I bought some model-esque oyster mushrooms, they were so pretty I felt a bit bad cutting them up . . .but I did it anyways. I chopped the mushrooms and chopped up a few cloves of garlic.
I threw the garlic into a large saute pan with a little bit of butter. After a minute add in your mushrooms (try not to crowd the pan, do as I say not as I do) and let them cook. I add salt at the end because I wanted the mushrooms to get that dry, nutty flavor instead of drawing out the liquid.
While the mushrooms were cooking I measured out 1.5 cups of quinoa and put it in a sauce pan with 3 cups chicken stock. Once it was boiling I reduced it to a low simmer, covered it and let it cook away for about 15 minutes (until tender).
To finish the quinoa dish, I chopped some cilantro and tossed the sauteed mushrooms and the cilantro in with the cooked quinoa. Salt to taste.
One of the beautiful dungeness crabbies
To fill the veggie quota I made a little 'salad' of fresh watercress, cumquats and a little salt and nice olive oil (very little).
Et voila, our healthy holiday-y meal.