People who know me, know I love pumpkins. Some say I have pumpkin “issues” .
I just love (real not fake not ceramic) pumpkins. The shapes of them, carving them, cooking with them, baking with them….again, I just love pumpkins! So when my new Country Living Magazine arrived yesterday, I was VERY happy needless to say!
Ok, what happens when I am supposed to be resting on a sprained ankle? I get restless.
The result: Banana Cake with Banana Buttercream Frosting. (I had leftover bananas to use up )
Banana Cake:
350 degree oven (pre-heat)
Grease and flour two round cake pans (mine are 9 1/2 inch) and line bottom with parchment or brown paper (cut out a circle just like your mom used to do.)
Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons buttermilk powder *
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (regular not large crystal sea salt)
3/4 cup sour milk**
1 cup smushed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup white raisins
1/2 teaspoon EACH of cinnamon, green cardamom powder, ground ginger
* = sour milk is regular milk with 2 teaspoons of white vinegar added. Stir in vinegar to mix, let sit 5 to 10 minutes
**= buttermilk powder can be gotten at baking supply places or online. It must be refrigerated when opened. You can use buttermilk powder AND sour milk OR regular buttermilk.
Take nuts and raisins and toss in a tablespoon or so of flour and set aside in small bowl.
Mix all dry ingredients.
Add bananas.
Add buttermilk or sour milk.
Add vanilla
Add butter
Beat everything on a low speed until blended and then pop up the power to medium high for about 2 minutes
Split batter evenly between prepared pans. Sprinkle nuts and raisins evenly over both plans (split in other words)
Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until toothpick or skewer comes out clean.
Cool in pans on rack for 10 – 15 minutes.
Remove cakes from pans and cool thoroughly.
When cool remove parchment or brown paper from bottom. Carefully or you will take chunks of cake away
Banana Butter Cream Frosting:
1 cup butter
1/2 smushed banana
4 cups confectioners sugar
scant 1/4 cup meringue powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 tablespoons soft cream cheese
2 tablespoons of milk
1/2 teaspoon EACH of ground ginger and cinnamon
First cream butter and cream cheese. Add vanilla and spices and banana. Add sugar. Add milk. Beat with hand mixer until frosting is smooth and creamy.
Frost the cake. I will note that after I frost this cake I place four evenly placed wooden skewers in the top and place cake in refrigerator for frosting to harden. This is a cake that has to have leftovers stay covered and refrigerated. I will also note that I decided to add the meringue powder (also available at specialty food/baking supply or online) to this because the banana makes the butter cream frosting too soft I think. The meringue powder which I generally keep on hand for royal icing stiffens the frosting up nicely.
I don’t think I left anything out.
Enjoy!
Any vegans in the room need to turn away from the page now. We’re talking chicken. And I love chickens. I am also a fan of Chickenman in West Vincent and am hoping he doesn’t get run over by the road master of West Vincent or the peace love and eminent domain lady and the lawyer of reinvention either.
But I digress. And besides, I bet Chickenman would love my home cooking as well as witty political repartee n’est–ce pas?
Back to cluck…so easy to wander down a rutty path towards politics when discussing 
chicken dinners. After all chicken dinners are the staple of most politicians.
(If you were hoping for The Pioneer Woman or Barefoot Contessa , sorry, it’s just me)
And yes, as per above photo I do know where chickens come from. No, I will not be doing my version of Little House on The Prairie and 
fetching a chicken and slaying it for dinner. Mine came from the market.
It’s summer I don’t want to stuff anything except maybe the occasional tomato or deviled egg. But today has been thunderstorm city and who knows if it will keep on not raining or not, so oven it is.
I love roast chicken and this is the plan B roast chicken when you don’t feel like stuffing.
First I clean out my chicken and remove the gizzards (which I freeze for homemade stock another time.)
Then I June Cleaver it with my cleaver. Oh ok: translation: I place my raw chicken breast side down on a non-wooden cutting board and cleave her open (see photos). Then I place her breast side up and 
spread out on a little roasting rack in a pan I have lined with that half parchment half foil paper, foil side up (easier clean up – sorry – it is Friday and I don’t want to be slave to kitchen.)
Then I look for two little skin pockets that I help along with a little paring knife (see photo) and I stuff 4 cloves of garlic sliced under the skin (evenly on each side) along with the herbs I have handy and fresh
outside – oregano, mint, thyme, rosemary, 2 bay leaves.
Then I channel my inner Julia Child but not to the point of Paula Deen and I rub the chicken with a pat of butter (ok so maybe it is like a tablespoon plus a smidgen.)
Then I rub on the skin salt, pepper, a little garlic powder, 
oregano, basil, smoked paprika, regular paprika, tarragon, cumin, and dried Valencia orange peel. Look, I don’t go THAT overboard, a dash or this and a dash of that until it smells good going in the oven. Omit what you don’t like.
Into a pre-heated 350 degree oven it goes. I have seen recipes that say different things with regard to the internal temperature and doneness, but I just let my meat thermometer do the thinking and when it says done for poultry I haul it out of the oven and rest the cluck for at 
least 15 minutes with foil on top. Tonight’s bird is 6.74 lbs. so it will cook about 2 to 2 1/2 hours at 350 degrees.
A note is halfway through I always sour a roast, whether it is chicken, turkey, pork, beef, etc. I sour it with whatever wine is open. I don’t drown it, just refresh it.
Tonight I have fresh corn and a salad to accompany my cluck. 
I will post a roasted completion photo later.
Happy cooking!
One of my most favorite things are vintage handmade quilts. Maybe it is part of the legacy of having had a Pennsylvania German grandmother, I don’t really know. I am not a quilter, but I admire it as a usable folk art form. I actually have a couple of friends who are quilters .
Quilts are just cool, and quilting has been a popular craft in the United States since the 1700s. In a sense, it is the ultimate folk art . ( A fun blog to check out on the topic is Tom Miner Quilts and Folk Art.)
Some of these vintage quilts can be very expensive, and they come in all colors and patterns. Many tell a story, yes story quilts. Or memory quilts. I hear there are quilt shows, but have never been to one. Quilts are history in textiles.
I look for simple quilts. I find them at tag sales, church sales, flea markets and there are a lot on eBay if you know what you are doing.
I will admit I am cheap, so I won’t pay much. A lot of people decorate with quilts, and there is a Pinterest Board about that and a little video on HGTV’s website that is about decorating with quilts.
I use my quilts, and I like to look at them so you will often find a stack perched on a guest room bed. I know people who have quilts tabbed and semi-mounted for wall hanging.
Country Living Magazine periodically has things about decorating with quilts. (Speaking of Country Living Magazine, you can still nominate this blog for a Blue Ribbon Blogger Award until July 29, 2012!)
A couple of quilts I have acquired have needed a little TLC and I have learned to patch 
them with scraps of ribbon, lace, and fabrics that meld with whatever the quilt has as afar as color and pattern. And you know what? For a loving hands at home bit of TLC, it works just fine!
Vintage quilts were made to be used, so seek them out. I will note that no vintage quilt ever goes on a bed without being cleaned first. I have never bought one that is dirty, truthfully, just something I think makes a common sense best practice.
If you know of places to find fun quilts, or shows that feature quilts, please feel free to post a comment!
When I started this blog, I didn’t think I would be sharing so much of my home cooking. But when I am pleased with recipes, I love to share, so here we go again. (If this keeps up, I might have to self-publish a small cookbook!)
Anyway, I purchased a big container of cherries from Frecon Farms this 
past Thursday at The East Goshen Farmers Market . They were more tart than sweet, so today I thought “pie”. Pie is an all-American part of summer, isn’t it?
I also had some leftover fresh cranberries in the freezer, so a combo pie idea was born. I also have other summer cherry memories….
The summer between 9th and 10th grade my friend Lizzy and I went to Alsace (Strasbourg) courtesy of a trip sponsored by the Valley Forge Historical Society. I stayed
with a family who owned a large working farm on the edge of a village called Stutzheim. One of the days I was there, I went with my host family’s daughter Marie-Claude to either a friend or relative’s home. We picked cherries right out of the trees, and they were so sweet. That was also where I saw pear trees with bottles in the trees and the pears growing inside the bottles for Poire William, an eau de vie distilled from pears. I also remember Marie Claude’s mother making these incredible tarts.
O.k., now that I am back from my trip down memory lane, back to the pie of it all. It 
ended up being a Cran-Cherry Pie with a Lattice-Crumble Topping. Would you like the recipe? It is out of my head today, so I had better write it down so I can do it again!
I also made the crust, and I made a sweet crust. In between I made a dry rub for the big thick steak for grilling this evening. I will serve that with the leftover pasta from last evening , and another salad. (And we decided no more pre-marinated Smithfield pork 
products as they are waaaaaaayyyyyy toooo ungodly salty.) But I will get to the dry rub later – and that is never an exact science, depends what herbs and spices leap off the spice rack at me. And a tip as we begin– do not wear a light-colored T-shirt when pitting cherries!
First the filling:
2 cups of white sugar
grated fresh ginger to taste
2 TB Calvados
2 TB Orange Juice
4 tablespoons corn starch
2 cups pitted fresh cherries
1 1/2 – 2 cups fresh cranberries (I thawed them, they were frozen)
Toss the fruit into a mixing bowl. Sprinkle the sugar and cornstarch. Grate some fresh ginger into it. Fold together. Add the Orange Juice and Calvados and set aside.
Second the crust:
1 1/2 cups maybe a bit more of flour
6 Tablespoons cold butter (unsalted)
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 -4 tablespoons ice water (you might use more as today I think I actually used 5 to get the dough to the consistency I wanted)
3 Tablespoons of sugar (white)
Dash of cinnamon, some more grated fresh ginger (I love fresh ginger, so I will and do incorporate it where I can.)
Take a big mixing bowl. Toss in the flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt, and ginger. Mix together with a fork until blended.
Cut the butter into little pieces and toss in to flour mixture. Use 2 forks or a pastry cutter
to incorporate the butter into the flour until it is all crumbly small together.
Add the ice water 1 tablespoon at a time. The dough should come together nicely and then form a ball, put it in a small bag, tie off the bag so the dough doesn’t dry out and then put the dough in the fridge for at LEAST one hour. Today my dough hung out and chilled for two hours as I had other things to do like make beds, etc.
Third the crumble topping: 
1/3 cup brown sugar
4 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup quick cooking but not instant oatmeal (plain, not flavored)
1/4 cup flour
cinnamon and ginger to taste
Dead simple – cut the butter up into tiny pieces and toss with other ingredients into a bowl and get out your trusty pastry cutter (they call it a “pastry blender” too) and mix it all together until you have nice, uniform crumbs.
When your dough is chilled, pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees. [YOU WILL TURN THE OVEN DOWN TO 375 DEGREES WHEN YOU BAKE]
Take your dough, flatten it somewhat into a flat, round disk in your hands and put 
between two pieces of saran wrap you have lightly floured. This makes rolling out the dough a snap.
When your dough is thin enough, lay in pie plate – today mine was a nine or ten inch one. I prefer the vintage glass pie plates that are over safe. This is one I picked up at a church sale a few years ago, and I guess I should measure it, but I haven’t.
Trim the crust – it doesn’t have to hang over that much. Set scraps aside, do not throw away. Crimp or flute or whatever your pie crust edge. Take a tiny smidge of soft butter and coat the bottom of the crust – I saw it on a show with Chef Robert Irvine when he was making over a restaurant. Some people also paint egg white on the bottom of the crust. It is an anti-soggy thing.
Toss in your cran-cherry filling.
Cover the filling neatly with the crumble topping.
Now….the anal Martha Stewart in me surfaces….take your pie crust scraps I told you to set aside and make a new pastry ball and toss them back between two lightly floured pieces of saran wrap. Roll it out as thin and all that good stuff as you can get it. Take a small kitchen knife and cut 8 uniform “ribbons”. Weave the “ribbons” four on a side OVER the crumble topping and gently attach to pie crust edge. I even had a little extra left over after that and cut out some free form leaves and fashioned a little flower. I did not egg wash the top today, but you can. I cover the edge of my pie crust lightly with a tin foil ring so the edges do not singe.
After you make sure you have turned down your pre-heated oven to 375 degrees, place your pie on a baking sheet lined with a piece of that half parchment half foil paper, foil side up. Bake 45 to 50 minutes. 
Trust me, this pie makes your whole kitchen smell awesome!
A tip is buy the Reynolds Wrap Non-Stick Pan Lining Paper NOT Martha Stewart’s version called Martha Wrap. Martha’s cost more and isn’t as good.
So, I told you we were grilling and I did a dry rub this morning, right? Today’s rub was salt, sugar, chipolte chili powder, sweet paprika, roast paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, rosemary, basil, oregano, cumin, a dash of Roopak’s Rajma Masala.
Bon apetit all!
Well, even out here where there is plenty of green and trees between houses, the misplaced sound of a buzz saw way before 8 a.m. will jar you awake. Such was the 
case with me, so I decided to get some baking out-of-the-way for later.
It’s Lemon Pound Cake day. I found this recipe in Real Simple that I tweak:
Ok so above is the recipe straight. I fiddle with everything, and what I do here is I add the zest of TWO lemons to the batter, I add grated fresh ginger, and I do a lemon soak before the glaze;
My lemon soak is juice of 2 lemons, grated zest, 1 cup of confectioners’ sugar and a couple of tablespoons of a liqueur called Framboise (right now I have an US Framboise out of Bonny Doon Vineyards.)
What I do is I line my pan (or pans as the case may be) with parchment baking paper after I do the grease and flour, so I can hike the cake or cakes out the pan or pans.
Anyway, I cool the cake or cakes post baking for 10 minutes, maybe a few longer. Then I pull them out of the pan gently, peel down the parchment paper and allow to cool for 30 minutes all in all on a baking rack on clean parchment paper.
I then poke little fork holes up and down the cake (no need to make hamburger out of the top, so be neat!) and gently pour the lemon soak goodness over the top of the cake. You will see today where I have propped up the new clean parchment paper with a single toothpick on each end of my cakes so the lemony-sugary goodness doesn’t run all over.
After that has all soaked in and everything is set I will either make a glaze or light lemony flavored royal icing and drizzle it over the top, or I also sometimes just dust with confectioners’ sugar before serving and adorn my platter with fresh mint sprigs and nasturtium blossoms. Today I soaked, I adorned with lemon royal icing, dotted with Nasturtium blossoms and mint sprigs.
In other fun of the day, my arugula is growing unmolested, apparently the blasted squirrels only liked the lettuce.
Remember you can still nominate this blog for a Country Living Magazine Blue Ribbon Blogger Award until July 29th, 2012. I hope you can do that for me, and you can also read about the contest more HERE.
And in the nesting of it all, thanks to Food Network I have discovered The Pioneer Woman. I am still not sure if her rancher hubby likes the cameras all over, but she has some terrific recipes. She has a website called (of course) The Pioneer Woman. I am also digging Trisha’s Southern Kitchen with Trisha Yearwood. Her website is here. I also love Barefoot Contessa, but she has been all re-runs lately. I used to watch Nigella Lawson a lot, but I got tired of the odd Euro pop music in the background and the fact they seemed to have an obsession with seeing her on camera raiding her fridge late at night. But she has some great recipes.
I love to cook, and do collect old cook books. And the bibles Mastering The Art of French Cooking are worth it to have in your collection. Julia Child taught me to do roast chicken and many other basics. There are also books by a woman named Kitty Maynard – American Country Inn and Bed & Breakfast Cookbooks that never disappoint (mine are so tattered, I really should replace them.)
Cooking is also somewhat instinctual. Almost everyone in my family cooks. My late father was a fabulous cook. I had one grandmother who was Italian and one who was Pennsylvania German. I also learned a lot from an Italian Great Aunt, Millie, whom I still miss to this day. Millie was a trip and if she was worried about her figure, she used to cut out the coca cola that she used to have in the afternoon for a while. And my maternal grandmother? No one, not any diner on earth could make meringues on pies go as high or be as perfect as my mumma’s were.
As a kid, I soaked this all up. I did not realize at the time I was soaking it all up, but I did. My cooking style blends my heritage of Italian, Irish, and Pennsylvania German. I can go haute or keep it simple. I actually have a handful of recipes uniquely my own on Scribd, including my epicurious.com award winning Sunday Pasta Sauce – yes I actually won a contest on this!
I should probably write down more of my recipes, like my chocolate chip cookies or 
various incarnations of gnocchi, traditional bolognese, sweet potato soup, crab mac and cheese, cranberry sauces and chutneys, apple and fruit butters, and pies, salads, and such, but most of my cooking is out of my head – a little this, a little that, judging flavors and textures. And when I use recipes, I am bad, I will often have several recipes open and cook from multiple recipes at one time for one meal. I am also the cookie fiend at Christmas, so I am happy to adopt any old cookie tins as I find them, especially vintage ones. (Speaking of which, I need to start hunting for those tines soon – I gave too many away last year during cookie craze!)
Enjoy your day people. I am going outside.
How can you not love these vintage wooden spoons? Don’t they just make you want to cook?! Vintage wooden spoons if in good shape are even just pretty to look at, but I use mine. So much more fun that new wooden spoons and for the most part are better made and utilize better woods.
Yes…I feel like entering a blog contest. Want to help your favorite neighborhood blogger?
Then follow this link :
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/blog-nominator2012
….and if you see the worthiness, please consider entering chestercountyramblings in Country Living Magazine’s 2012 Blue Ribbon Blogger Awards!
Winners will be featured in their December/January 2013 issue and will also attend a luncheon in their honor in New York City on November 13, 2012.
Nominations are open from May 15, 2012 until July 29, 2012. Please only nominate once.
Read more: Blue Ribbon Blogger Awards – 2012 Blog Awards – Country Living.
Come on now….do a gal a favor! I spent a good part of 2011 dealing with breast cancer, so it would be nice to have more fun stuff in 2012.
Thanks for considering chestercountyramblings for this honor!