January 29th: applesauce cake, pork tenderloin en croûte

Winners all around today. All my Saturday plans were cancelled, which meant I had a lazy day to spend at home. It's been awhile and I've been wanting one. Lazy means doing load after load of laundry, of course. O and I spent our Saturday morning making applesauce cake, a recipe I pulled out of the Ottawa Citizen in November 2009. I had originally planned to make it for O's birthday in 2010, but didn't, and then this year, when I asked her whether she wanted apple, carrot or chocolate cake for her birthday, surprise, surprise, she chose chocolate. Of course, on the day of, after her cake was made, she told me she wanted strawberry cake. Too little, too late, my dear.


So, applesauce cake. This recipe makes two loaf pan cakes, and I though it might be more like an applesauce loaf, but oh no, this is cake all the way, and it is delicious. Between the three of us (mostly me and O), we ate almost one whole cake over the course of the day. Really, really good. We'll definitely try this one again.

Applesauce Cake

3/4 cup (175 mL) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) sugar
3 eggs
2 cups (500 mL) all-purpose flour, sifted
3/4 cup (175 mL) whole wheat flour*
1 1/2 tsps (7 mL) salt
1 1/2 tsps (7 mL) baking powder
1/2 tsp (2 mL) baking soda
1/2 tsp (2 mL) nutmeg
1/2 tsp (2 mL) cinnamon
114-oz (398 mL) unsweetened applesauce**
3/4 cup (175 mL) chopped walnuts, optional***

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in eggs.

In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Add to creamed mixture, alternating with applesauce, beating after each addition. If you like, stir in walnuts. Divide batter between 2 greased loaf pans.

Bake for one hour or until done (start checking at the 50 minute mark). Remove and let cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans and putting on rack to cool completely.

Makes 8 servings.

Sugar glaze:

Combine 1/2 cup (125 mL) icing sugar, sifted, with 1 tbsp (15 mL) water. Pour over cakes.

*Whole wheat flour is my addition; the original recipe called for 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour.
**The original recipe called for sweetened applesauce; I don't think the cake needs the added sugar.
***I didn't see this option until I was making the cake, and I didn't have walnuts on hand, so can't vouch for the flavour with their addition.

Olivia sifts.

Blending together wet and dry ingredients.

Finished product!

For supper, I made a Beef Wellington look alike: from January 2004's Chatelaine: Pork tenderloin en croûte. This is pork tenderloin, wrapped in prosciutto, wrapped in puff pastry. Yum yum. The flavouring is Dijon mustard, rosemary, salt and pepper. Simple stuff. I skip all the fussy steps requiring you to make fancy cut-outs to put on top of the pastry, and I used pre-rolled pastry, just because that's what I had. This was a second go-around for us, and definitely a keeper. Delish. We would have eaten the whole tenderloin if I hadn't foreseen that and overloaded our salad bowls and roasted multi-coloured baby potatoes and garlic for the side.

We've been eating with a Doozy candle on the table recently, which Olivia thinks means we're having a fancy supper. This meal was a bit of a fancy supper (but simple, really). Oh, Saturday night, if only you could last forever...

Prior to rolling.

Ready to go in the oven.

Finished product!

Complete meal/fuzzy pic.

Cutest kid in the world/biased mother.

September 26th: chutney, soup and applesauce

Verdict:
Keeper: applesauce
Try Agains: chutney, soup

It is so fall in the food in my house these days. I love changing food focus based on the seasons, and I am happy to be living in a four-season country.

Yesterday I cooked a chutney, which is so ridiculously easy, I am never buying chutney again. This was from September 2010's Chatelaine: Roasted Plum Chutney. I made two substitutions: I didn't have port, so I used sherry cooking wine, and I didn't have whole star anise, so I put in five whole cloves.* This was very, very easy. Minimal prep, a bit of cooking time, and absolutely delicious. Olivia and I had this for lunch with a local apple, local apple cider, a baguette and a selection of artisanal cheeses. Alright, that last bit isn't true: we had three different cheeses, probably mass-manufactured, and purchased at the Superstore. I hang my head. And, truth be told, O wouldn't taste the chutney. She might have liked it if she weren't being a stubborn 2 year old.

*These were hard to locate in the cooked chutney when I wanted to remove them.

That was yesterday. Today for supper, I made a try again soup from last year, and it is a try again, again, because I missed my note from last year to up the spice by including some jalapeno seeds. I will add some stars to my note so when I next make it, I will remember to make it spicier. From September 2009's Chatelaine: Mexican-style chicken soup. I would recommend, unless you are feeding troops, to halve the recipe. Half the recipe makes a lot. I used way less chicken than it called for, and that was fine.

Finally, after supper, Olivia and I made applesauce! We visited our local fruit farm yesterday and picked up some Empire apples for eating (see photos above) and MacIntoshes for cooking. We made two applesauces, one sweetened and one unsweetened. Poor O doesn't know about the possibility of putting sugar in applesauce yet. She helped me by (a) eating apple slices as I peeled and chopped and (b) putting the apples in the two pots. This is a recipe I've had kicking around for a million years, and I love it. This time I used brown sugar instead of white, which I think I will continue to do.

Applesauce

4 apples
1/4 cup water

optional additions to make sweetened applesauce:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp butter

Peel, core and quarter apples. Place in pot and add water, and additional ingredients if so desired. Bring to a boil over high heat, cover and lower heat to simmer until desired softness (approx. 10 minutes). Stir occasionally, breaking up bigger chunks if you like thinner applesauce. Mash with potato masher if you want it really fine. Serve warm, at room temperature, or cold.**

**Going on memory, I think the sweetened applesauce needs to be reheated prior to eating, as the butter gets hard. You could also leave the butter out entirely.

Didn't take a picture of the applesauce. It looks like applesauce. You can probably imagine it. :) (Actually, with the brown sugar, the sweetened applesauce was quite dark.)