Ginger Mango Upside Down Cake

Just out of the oven.

Because when life (and Karen, armed with a Costco membership) hands you too many mangoes, you should make a cake with them. Or a huge dish of Mango-Lime Sorbet. You know, either one. Just fyi, I tried making this in a pie plate because, honestly, it was the first thing I saw when I opened the drawer. This came WAY too close to overflowing for comfort (though it did not). I suggest using a cake pan, which is usually a bit bigger, so you don’t have to sweat bullets like I did. I butchered this recipe from Bakerella for the perfect yellow cake and made it my own, cutting it in half and adding some extra ingredients and substitutions. I just discovered her site the other day and I’m not sure how I lived without it till now. I find a lot of good cooking blogs through random searches on Google or through other favorite cooking blogs’ blogrolls and each is a welcome addition to my weekly internet reading.

A successful flip!

Ginger Mango Upside Down Cake
7-8 Champagne mangoes, peeled and sliced into one-inch long thin strips
1 stick butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons fresh ginger, grated
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons crystallized ginger, grated

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Grease a cake pan with butter.
3. Pile mango slices in the bottom of the pan, making sure every inch of the bottom is covered.
4. Cream the butter in a large mixing bowl till fluffy.
5. Add in the sugar and cream about 5 minutes.
6. Add the eggs one by one, beating thoroughly after each.
7. Add flour and almond milk, alternating, beginning and ending with the flour.
8. Add vanilla, ginger, and honey till just mixed.
9. Pour the batter over the mangoes. Smoothing out the top.
10. Bake 40-50 minutes, till toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
11. Cool 10-15 minutes.
12. Carefully run a knife around the edges of the cake pan.
13. Place a plate upside down on top of the cake pan. Carefully flip the two dishes over together. The cake should pop out onto the plate, mango side up. Tap lightly to make sure the cake comes out clean.
14. Sprinkle the crystallized ginger over the top and drizzle with a little bit of extra honey, if desired.

The scalloped pie plate gave the cake a lovely scalloped edge.

I just couldn’t choose a favorite photo.

Sit down and have a slice.

Sweet Onion Sauce and Super Green Salad

The week we got back up to Alaska, Karen and I thought a salad would be a nice complement to the Perfect Creamed Potatoes and for finishing off the Italian sausages leftover from our trip up to Alaska. However I prefer red onion in my salad and all she had was yellow onion. I don’t like a ton of raw yellow onion in my salad. So I decided to saute it a bit first so the taste would be a bit milder and sweeter. Then I started thinking about what else I could do with it to make it even sweeter, as the salad already had leftover pineapple chunks in it, and I went on one of my crazy experimental things from there (though this recipe isn’t at all complex). I called this “Super Green Salad” simply because without realizing it most of the veggies that went into it were green. For some reason we seemed to have eaten all the non-green veggies. We actually meant to put green peppers into it too, but I forgot them till it was too late (sad). Go ahead and offer salad dressing with this if you want, but tell folks to give it a taste test first, as we found that the sweetness of the pineapple and the Sweet Onion Sauce made it pretty darn good without any other dressing at all. Also, I’d VERY smugly like you to note the better quality of photo from this and the last posts…my new camera arrived and I finally figured out how to get the photos off of it. Satisfaction!

Sweet Onion Sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, sliced or diced thinly
salt, to taste
black pepper, to taste
2-3 tablespoons honey, to taste

1. Combine olive oil, onions, salt, pepper and honey in a skillet over low to medium-low heat.
2. Saute till the onions are browned and there’s a sauce of onion juices, oil and honey.
3. Let the mixture cool so as not to wilt your greens and toss into your salad with all the juices.

Sweet Onion Sauce on the stove

Super Green Salad
1 16-oz. package baby spinach
1 small head lettuce (your choice)
1/2 cup alfalfa sprouts
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup pineapple, cut into chunks
1/4 cup whole almonds, crushed
1/2 medium cucumber, sliced thin
1/2 tablespoon dried sweet basil
cayenne pepper, to taste
1/2 teaspoon orange peel
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon ginger powder
1 recipe Sweet Onion Sauce (above)

1. Combine everything in a bowl and toss till thoroughly mixed and coated. If you want to do it the lazy way, put everything in a large bowl with a lid, put the lid on and shake it around that way.

Super Green Salad with Sweet Onion Sauce tossed in

Jim’s Chocolate Berry Pie

Jim’s Chocolate Berry Pie

I made this pie especially for Jim, Jake’s dad. Our first full day up here in Alaska ended with a family dinner at the local Thai restaurant. Jim drove home with me while Jake drove his mother home in style (awww…so sweet). On the way back Jim commented that all that was missing now was a nice slice of pie. He said it so wistfully that I thought: “oh yea, I’ll make him one tomorrow.” Luckily Karen (Jake’s mom) had a ton of fruit left over from Ayla’s (Jake’s niece) birthday party (which we missed by a matter of hours…sad!), so we decided to use all the leftover blueberries, raspberries and blackberries together to make a berry pie. Then we noticed we had baking chocolate…and it just went HAYWIRE from there. To make the rum whipped cream, simply use this recipe for Holiday Spiced Coffee with Brandied Whipped Cream and sub in rum for the brandy. Make a double batch if you want, and use the leftovers to top your coffee (you drunken fool).

Jim’s Chocolate Berry Pie
for the filling:
1 container blueberries, washed, bad berries picked out
1 container raspberries, washed, bad berries picked out
1 container blackberries, washed, bad berries picked out
3/4 cup rum
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon ginger powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon orange peel
3 tablespoons honey

for the crust:
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 tablespoons butter, melted
4-6 squares unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar (more or less, to taste)
1 plastic wrap package graham crackers, crushed
1/2 cup almonds, crushed

1. In a large mixing bowl with a lid, combine the berries, cinnamon, sugar, ginger powder, cardamom, orange peel, honey and rum. Put the lid on the mixing bowl and shake vigorously to coat the berries in the mixture. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour, shaking occassionally to redistribute the mixture amongst the berries.
2. Preheat the oven to 375F. Meanwhile, combine the melted butter and chocolate in a medium bowl and stir to combine.
3. Add the vanilla, sugar and cinnamon to the chocolate mixture and stir in well.
4. In a 9-inch ungreased pie plate, stir together the crushed graham crackers and almonds.
5. Add the chocolate mixture to the pie plate and mix thoroughly, making sure all the graham crackers and almonds are coated with the chocolate.
6. Work the graham cracker and chocolate mixture around the bottom and sides of the pie plate, pressing firmly so the mixture sticks well.
7. Once the berries have soaked long enough, carefully pile them on top of the crust, distributing them evenly.
8. Put the pie in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour, till berries have cooked down a bit, the berries on top are just brown and the crust is cooked.
9. Cool till just warm and top with rum whipped cream.

I love the way the berries look in the pie, so I waited till I dished it up to plop on the whipped cream.

Microwave Blueberry Pancakes

I got this recipe from “PETA’s Vegan College Cookbook”. I thought it would be fun to try in Alaska this summer, where fresh blueberries abound. I have to be honest, after the touch-and-go nature of the recipes in this cookbook I was pretty convinced this would not work. Happily, I was wrong. Not only did it work well, but it tasted great–the same as making pancakes the ordinary way. The one error I found was that this recipe made WAY more than fit into 2 regular sized coffee mugs. It actually made enough for 4 regular sized mugs of blueberry pancake. Another thing to note is that if you use Alaska blueberries (as we did), you will definitely need to put a bit of syrup or powdered sugar on top, as suggested in the recipe, because Alaska blueberries are not as sweet. Instructions for vegan and non-vegan (aka. using an egg and regular milk, which is what we had to do since we didn’t have soy milk or egg replacer in the house) pancakes are below. Try them plain as well, or with other fruits like strawberries or cranberries. Yum! My mouth is already watering in anticipation. I can’t wait to make this again…and I know I will. Also, please note the coffee cups used below. The pictures are painted by a famous Alaskan artist who I adore as I remember her paintings from some of my favorite children’s books when I was growing up.

Microwave Blueberry Pancakes
2 cups Bisquick
1 cup soy milk or regular milk
3 teaspoons egg replacer or 1 egg
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
maple syrup, to taste
powdered sugar, to taste
vegan margarine, to taste

1. Mix the Bisquick, soy milk, eggs and blueberries together.
2. Pour evenly into 2-4 mugs.
3. Microwave each 1-2 minutes, or till completely cooked.
4. Add maple syrup, powdered sugar or vegan margarine to taste and eat.

Microwave Blueberry Pancakes

Perfect Creamed Potatoes

Perfect Creamed Potatoes

Not that long ago I was back in Tucson and I was preoccupied because it was my birthday and I’m 29 now, which is a year closer to 30 which makes me nervous though I know it’s not actually “old”. Jake made me his shrimp cream soup for dinner and got me flowers. Anyway, I made this recipe for mashed potatoes a few weeks ago. The recipe was from my “Encyclopedia of Vegetables and Vegetarian Cooking” cookbook. I was really interested by the addition of nutmeg to this recipe. It was good. Not the best mashed potatoes recipe I’ve had. I think that title belongs to this recipe for Paprika Mashed Potatoes that I tried a while ago. However, it’s really really difficult to choose a favorite recipe for mashed potatoes. Probably because they’re SO good.

Perfect Creamed Potatoes
2 pounds red potatoes, cleaned, bad spots removed, and diced
3 tablespoons olive oil
about 2/3 cup half and half or plain yogurt
nutmeg, to taste
salt and black pepper, to taste
a few leaves of fresh basil or parsley, chopped

1. Boil the red potatoes till tender. Drain.
2. Add the olive oil, half and half, nutmeg, salt and pepper, and basil and mash with a potato masher till mostly smooshed.
3. Adjust spices and seasonings as necessary, even the milk, if you want it creamier.

Tapenade

I had a ton of sun dried tomatoes left over and little time to use them before we left for our doomed trip to Alaska. This recipe from “The Garden of Vegan” cookbook was simple and very tasty. We tried this on wheat crackers, on bread, on pitas. Finally we decided we liked it best spread on multigrain bread for grilled cheese. Yum! I am not a huge fan of sun dried tomatoes. A few are okay, but they are not something that I pile on to any of my foods. So I was surprised at how much I loved this spread.

Tapenade
1 can pitted Kalamata olives, drained and rinsed
2 cloves garlic, chopped
10-12 sun dried tomatoes, rehydrated
1/4 cup capers
1 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons Braggs

1. Combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend together till coarse.

Tapenade