Try This Recipe: One-Pot Lentil Stew & Recipe Exchange

My mother is a very sensible woman and does not usually pass on or even read chain emails, but she actually sent me one recently. It's a virtual recipe exchange; send your favorite go-to easy recipe to the person who sent the email to her, and then pass the recipe exchange invitation along to your contacts, asking them to send her a recipe and do the same, so that you recieve recipes from their contacts. It's kind of interesting because you wind up with recipes that you might not have gotten otherwise.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I actually participated, in part because I am sick as a dog and have been nursing a pot of lentil stew. It's excellent, as dorm fare goes, and pretty darn good as a sick-day cookup, too. This is the recipe I sent out (to my Aunt Patti, actually.)

One-Pot Lentil Stew

1 c. chopped ham, bacon, or canadian bacon

1 medium onion, chopped

2 medium carrots, chopped

2 stalks of celerey, chopped

2-3 cups of any other veggies you feel like adding, chopped. Tried and true: cabbage, potato, spinach, turnip, and parsnip - not necessarily in the pot together, but they each work well in this stew.

1 can of diced tomatoes, with juice

1 can of V8

Water (fill the empty tomato can and pour it in)

Salt, pepper and rosemary (optional) to taste

1 c. lentils (or other dried bean)

In a large pot over mediumt to high heat, cook the ham and onion together until they begin to caramelize, stirring frequently. Add the carrots, celerey, and other veggies, stirring until they begin to wilt. Add diced tomatoes, V8, and water. Simmer 5-10 minutes, or until the veggies are tender. Taste and season with salt and pepper as desired. If you want, add a whole sprig of rosemary. (Rosemary tastes great in this, and by adding a whole sprig you can cook in the flavor but pull out the needles, so it doesn't ruin the texture.) Add lentils and simmer, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes or until lentils are tender. Serves 8.

If the recipe exchange sounds interesting to you, let me know by emailing me at uronlysunshine@gmail.com. I'll add you to the email before I send it out - I'm curious to see what I'll get back. Enjoy!

Try This Recipe: Mom's Dark Chocolate & Orange Cake

My mother loves to bake, even more than I do. As I've mentioned before, she is a chemist, and baking is chemistry with really tasty results. She also decorates cakes for friends and family. When my oldest cousin got married, Mom made her wedding cake, covered in fondant and Cornelini lace. Learning from her has been one of the best things in my culinary education. If you have a little extra orange buttercream icing, try your hand at making buttercream roses.

This is the cake she made for my 21st birthday. She created this recipe for the Hershey's Cocoa Classic, and got all the way to the Pennsylvania State Fair with it last year, before being railroaded by an anti-citrus judge. Be aware, this cake is very strong in flavor, and quite rich. You could easily get 16 slices from this, and even more if you've got a sharp knife.

For the cake:

6 T butter

6 T margarine

1 3/4 c sugar

2 eggs

1 t vanilla

2 c flour

3/4 c Hershey's Special Dark cocoa

1 1/4 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 1/3 c water

Grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans, line bottoms with wax paper, grease paper. Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter, margarine and sugar in large mixer bowl. Add eggs and vanilla; beat 1 minute at medium speed. Combine dry ingredients; add alternately with water to creamed mixture. Pour batter into greased pans. Bake for 45 minutes at 350, or until layers test done. Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack, removing wax paper immediately, and allow cakes to cool completely.

Orange buttercream icing:

3/4 c butter

1 t orange extract

Zest of 2 medium oranges

3 c powdered sugar

1 1/2 T heavy cream

(optional) food coloring - 2 drops red, 4 yellow

Cream butter, add extract and zest. Gradually add cream and sugar. Add food coloring if desired. Beat on high until smooth and light.

Chocolate fudge frosting:

6 T melted butter

1/2 c Hershey's Special Dark cocoa

2 c powdered sugar

1/4 c heavy cream

1 t vanilla extract

Pour melted butter into mixing bowl; add cocoa, stirring until smooth. Gradually beat in powdered sugar, cream, and vanilla. Beat until smooth.

To assemble the cake, level your halves, and torte the layers - cut them in half horizontally, so that now you have four thin layers of cake. Fill between the layers with the orange icing, and use it to make a thin crumb coat on the sides of the cake. This does a couple of things: torting the cake distributes rich orange flavor, and the crumb coat keeps the cut edges of the cake from gunking up the outer layer of your icing with - you guessed it - crumbs. Ice the sides and top of the cake with chocolate icing, and decorate with the remaining orange buttercream. No matter how it looks, this is a showstopper once the first person takes a bite.

Try This Vlog: Working Class Foodies

If you've read more than two or three posts by now you know that I am a huge fan of Simply Recipes and 101 Cookbooks. Now, I am also a fan of Working Class Foodies. The premise of this sort-of vlog is that siblings in New York are looking to prepare healthy food from sustainable sources on a tight budget. Sounds pretty familiar, huh? I'd get my brother in on this, but he has a thing for Cheetohs and Top Ramen. WCF is just fun, light, informative, and it makes my mouth water every time I watch it.

In other news, we finally have a fridge! My roommates and I are all looking forward to being to store the food we've prepared, and I am looking forward to... boxed lunches. Yessiree, you heard me right, I am looking forward to boxed lunches. My schedule this semester runs me hard from 9 to 5, and there simply are no Hofstra meals that are fast, cheap, and appetizing. Solution? Bento! I might not spend the time and effort Anna the Red does but that doesn't mean I can't learn a little something from the Japanese art of the boxed lunch. This weekend will include a grocery store run for an appropriate box, rice, and some nice fresh veggies.