Pear/Ginger Upside-down Cake

Every year at pear season I experiment with a pear and ginger cake recipe that I saw in a random cookbook from a craft store, and I couldn't get it to work like it looked in the picture. Somehow these people made a thick-ish batter and set pear slices on top and after baking the pears were still on the top of the cake. When I tried it the pear slices sank to the bottom and it wasn't very impressive. So then I tried a few mutations on the theme, trying to perfect a recipe (pear-fect, ha ha) to get the most flavor into the cake and make it beautiful. I've tried making a pound cake in a bundt pan so that the pears in the bottom of the pan will end up on the top when you take it out of the pan and it should be pretty, but it wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be. And then I was talking to my dad a few days ago, telling him my plans for the hundred or so pears that I had getting ready for jamming, and I told him my dilema, the elusive cake recipe. He suggested doing it like a pineapple upside-down cake, because it's easy to find a trusty recipe. I tried it last week, and somehow this gave me the most flavor bang for my buck, and I think it looks pretty good. So, thanks Dad! This one is for you.

Pear and Ginger Upside-Down Cake
(Adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, 11th edition.)

3 firm pears
1 tablespoon finely diced fresh ginger
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Peel, cut in half, and core the pears, coat with lemon juice as needed to keep them from browning while you work. In a skillet over medium high heat, lightly cook the pear halves with about 1 teaspoon of the chopped ginger until they are a gentle golden brown on the outside. This step is important for fresh pears to soften and cook them a little, as well as infuse them with the ginger flavor, but if you can't find good fresh pears (a struggle, I know) and opt for canned pears instead, you can skip it.
Grease a 9-inch cake pan, mix together the brown sugar and tablespoon of butter, sprinkle over the bottom of the pan. Arrange the pears, cut side down, on top of the sugar, and sprinkle the remaining ginger over all.
Mix together the flour, granulated sugar and baking powder in a medium size bowl. Add milk, the 1/4 cup butter, egg, and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer on low for about a minute. Spoon the batter over the fruit in the pan.
Bake in a preheated 350 oven for 35-40 minutes until  a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for about 5 minutes on a wire rack, then invert onto a plate and serve warm. Eat any leftovers for breakfast tomorrow.

Jamming Time

Pears were on sale last week for really cheap, so we bought at least 30 pounds of pears and I made a lot of jam yesterday and today, and now I have a strange callous on my hand from paring so many pears. I did a bunch of pectin-free batches, and I did about 4 batches with the kind of  pectin that uses less sugar. It all turned out well. The first couple of batches made with pectin set up really hard, I think because the pears were less ripe at first. I let them sit with a banana in a warm place for a day before doing the next ones with pectin. The pectin-free pear jam, unlike the pectin-free boysenberry jams I did a couple months ago, turned out a little more like syrup than jam, although some of the pectin-free jams set up more, depending again on the ripeness of the fruit. I was really excited to do some fun flavor combinations because pears are nice and mild and like being eaten with all sorts of spices. I have been planning on doing pear and ginger for a while, it's a combination that I experiment with every year during pear season (see my pear and ginger upside-down cake, recipe coming soon!). It is delicious, but the other combination I tried was even better: pear with cardamom. It is like heaven on a piece of toast, on a hotcake, mixed in with your oatmeal for breakfast, and probably warm over vanilla ice cream. I can't give you the recipe because I think I might start selling it. Yes, it is that good.

In the picture from left to right: Pear with cardamom and other spices, Pear with ginger and cardamom, Pear with ginger.

Rhubarb Cobbler

Rhubarb has always fascinated me. It looks like pink celery, and it tastes so good in pie. It's amazing. If you have ever had rhurbarb, its was probably in strawberry rhubarb pie. When I was in high school, I really wanted to grow rhubarb in our yard because I had heard that it grows really well in cold places like Siberia and Wyoming. My dad never really got on board with that idea, maybe because he only knew of one thing to do with it. But I have always been sure that there is so much more to do with it, I just need a lot to experiment with.

Now, whenever I see good fresh looking rhubarb at the grocery store or the farmers market, I buy a couple of stalks and either use them immediately, or cut them up and freeze them for future use. It freezes very nicely, just spread out the pieces on a cookie sheet so they aren't all in a big clump and then put them in a freezer bag so that you can measure them easily when you use them later. Elise, of my favorite food blog, simplyrecipes.com recently posted a bunch of great looking rhubarb recipes, I haven't had a chance to try them all, because I keep getting stuck on this rhubarb cobbler recipe which I want to share with you today.

A couple of years ago I saw this recipe for rhubarb cobbler online, I don't remember where or I would post the reference, and it is awesome. We tried making it in the dutch oven with my family with the same dumping method you use to make peach cobbler with canned peaches, but it didn't have enough liquid in it to make the cakey part turn into cake, and it was way too sweet, plus the melty wax from the everlasting candles we put in for Motherdear's birthday, and overall wastn't the best cobbler experience ever, so that was kind of a bummer. So here is the tried and true method that you do in a cake pan in the oven.

Rhubarb Cobbler

3 c. chopped rhubarb

3/4 c. brown sugar
4 Tbsp. butter, melted
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 c. milk
1 1/2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 c. sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, butter a 9 x 11 inch pan. Combine rhubarb and brown sugar in a medium size bowl, mix well and set aside. In a large bowl, combine 3 tablespoons of the melted butter, eggs, milk, flour baking powder, vanilla, and sugar. Beat with a heavy whisk until a smooth batter is formed. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Spread the rhubarb mixture over the batter in an even layer. Drizzle with the remaining melted butter, bake for 40 minutes, maybe a little longer if you want the middle not quite as gooey as it looks in the picture above. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream, if desired.

Variations:

*Add 2 or more teaspoons (to taste) minced fresh ginger root to the rhubarb/sugar mixture, prepare and devour as usual.
*Add orange zest and up to 1/4 c. orange juice to rhubarb/sugar mixture (decrease amount of sugar if you are adding juice), prepare and devour as usual.
*I kind of think that the amount of sugar in the rhubarb part can be reduced a little, as you like it. It is important to have some sugar, because it helps make it liquidy, which seems important for cobbler, and rhubarb is very very tart on its own. But you may want to reduce the sugar if it sounds like too much for you.

Bright and Tasty Vegetable Stew

The idea for this dish is from a Moroccan tagine. Something that I have never actually eaten, unfortunately, but I saw this recipe for a lamb tagine with all these different vegetables, and I really wanted to try it. We were feeding the missionaries, and what better time to experiment with crazy food than when you have a captive audience, right? Actually, I get super nervous about cooking for other people, start thinking too much and second guessing myself, so maybe not the best idea after all.

The original recipe is from a cookbook I got at the library, "The Africa Cookbook: Tastes of a Continent" by Jessica B. Harris. It calls for lamb, carrots, turnips, eggplants, calabash squash (like a pumpkin) and zucchini, along with spices, of course. That combination of vegetables seemed a little more autumnal that I wanted, so I did something a little different, and hopefully still preserved the spirit of the thing. I meant to serve it with couscous, but apparently I didn't have any couscous. It was really good with the rice that I cooked instead with vegetable stock and a little cardamom. You could of course add meat, beef or lamb would be good, brown them to start with in olive oil and spices, then add the vegetables as directed. Or you can grill your favorite meat and serve it on the side, in case you are feeding a vegetarian. Pesky vegetarians.

Vegetable Tagine 
olive oil for sautéing
5-6 carrots, chopped into 1 inch chunks
1 onion, chopped not too small

2 teaspoons fresh ginger, roughly chopped 

fresh ground black pepper, to taste

5 or 6 cardamom seeds, or about 1/4 tsp. fresh ground cardamom

pinch saffron (optional)
3 sweet bell peppers, chopped into 1 inch chunks
3 zucchinis, chopped into 1 inch chunks
1 - 1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
6-8 sprigs cilantro, leaves coarsely chopped
6-8 sprigs parsley, leaves coarsely chopped

Sauté the carrots and the onion in olive oil for a couple of minutes, add cardamom, black pepper and saffron, half of the ginger. Add the bell peppers, and zucchinis  and stock. Simmer covered for 20-30 minutes, add the remaining ginger halfway through. Stir occasionally until the vegetables are soft and there is less liquid, it shouldn't be too dry, but it shouldn't be soupy at all. Add the chopped cilantro and parsley leaves, let simmer an additional 5 or so minutes. The colors of the vegetables should be bright and cheerful, and the flavor with the spices will be bright and cheerful, too. Serve along with rice or couscous flavored with cardamom or thyme.
Serves 6.

Peach and Ginger!

I finally got some great looking peaches and fresh ginger root and combined them in a pie, like I've been wanting to do for a long time. It was fabulous! I cannot describe just how much I liked it, so instead I'll give you the recipe and you'll have to try it, too. I hope you like it as much as I do. Sorry, no pictures this time.

Sensational Peach and Ginger Rustic Pie
4 large peaches
juice of one small lemon
1/2 inch chunk fresh ginnger
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/3 c. sugar
2 tsp. cornstarch

chilled pie crust dough for a 1 crust pie

Poach the peaches in boiling water for a minute, then dunk in ice water, now the peels should slide off easily. Peel the peaches, cut into 8 pieces and place in a bowl with the lemon juice. Cut the ginger into pieces small enough to fit in a garlic mincer, mince it into the peach bowl. Mix the ground ginger with the sugar and mix with the peaches. Let set for at least 15 minutes, drain any accumulated juices into a small saucepan. Bring the juices to a boil, swirling them gently until they have reduced and carmelized somewhat. Meanwhile, gently mix the cornstarch through the peaches, making sure there are no clumps. Pour the reduced juices back over the peaches and mix again.
Now to assemble the pie: place the chilled pie crust dough on a lightly greased baking sheet. Arrange the peach slices in the middle of the crust, and fold the edge over so that there is about 2 inches of crust over the filling, and a you can see the filling in the middle. Seal the folds well so that the crust won't relax and fall apart as it bakes. Pour the juices into the middle of the pie. Chill the pie in the fridge while the oven preheats to 450, at least 30 minutes. If desired, you can brush the crust with milk and sprinkle lightly with sugar before baking, to make a shiny and sparkly crust. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the filling is bubbly and the crust is quite brown. Let the pie cool for at least 30 minutes, then cut into wedges and serve.

Banana Scones

Here's something else you can do with that brown banana besides banana bread. I started trying to work out a recipe like this when we were in Austria and I didn't have bread pans, and they turned out pretty good. The oats give it a nice hearty sort of texture and the ginger, a surprising little bite. If your crystallized ginger is very hard you might want to soak it in the milk before mixing it in.

Banana Scones with Ginger
2 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. powdered ginger
1 c. quick oats
1/2 c. butter, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1/4 c. milk
1 tbsp. crystallized ginger, cut into very small pieces
2 very ripe, large bananas

a little extra milk, for topping
1/8 c. sugar with 1/8 tsp. ground ginger mixed in, for topping

Preheat the oven to 425. Mix together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, powdered ginger, and oats. Toss in the cold butter, and cut it in with two butter knives or rub it in with your fingers until it resembles coarse crumbs. Let the mixture chill in the freezer while you prepare the other ingredients. Mash the bananas until they are very smooth, then measure out 1 cup of the mash. Two bananas should give you slightly more than one cup, so just discard the rest. Take the flour mixture out of the freezer, and pour the mashed banana and the milk and crystallized ginger into it. Toss it lightly with a fork, then turn it out onto a clean surface and knead it a little until everything holds together and is equally sticky. It will be quite sticky, so you might want to flour your hands just very lightly.

Gather the dough together into a ball, and transfer it to a greased baking sheet. Spread the ball of dough into a circle about 1 inch tall and 7 or 8 inches across. Then with a clean knife, cut the circle into 8 wedges, wiggling the knife in between them to separate them slightly. Brush a little extra milk on the top of each wedge, then sprinkle that lightly with the sugar/ginger mixture. You probably won't even use all of the sugar.


Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes. The top and edges should be starting to turn a light golden brown, and the scones should not look shiny and wet anymore, just sparkly from the sugar topping. Enjoy with milk or some fruity tea.