Old-Fashioned Gingerbread #recipe #dessert @LucyBurdette

No, it's not key lime pie

 LUCY BURDETTE: 

Sometimes I feel like I should tie every single recipe I post here to Key West. But good gravy (as Hayley Snow would say), we can't eat key lime pie every night! And besides, we believe there are plenty of you still suffering the effects of winter who might enjoy a hearty (and almost healthy!) gingerbread. 

The recipe originated with Moosewood's ENCHANTED BROCCOLI FOREST, but it's undergone construction since back in those days! I made the whole thing in my food processor, which saved time and dirty dishes--and worked out rather well.

Butter well an 8 inch glass pan.

Preheat the oven to 350


 
 Ingredients
5 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
 1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup molasses
1 large egg
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached white flour, 
1 teaspoon dry mustard, 
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
a pinch of salt 
one half teaspoon of cinnamon
 
Sauté 3 tablespoons of grated ginger in the melted butter.

In a food processor or with your mixer, beat the honey with the molasses until thick and light. Add the butter-ginger mixture and combine well.

In a glass bowl or Pyrex measuring cup beat together the large egg with the yogurt. Mix these in with the butter-ginger-honey-molasses mixture.
 
Sift together 1 cup white whole wheat flour with 1 cup unbleached flour, 1 teaspoon dry mustard, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda and a pinch of salt and a half teaspoon of cinnamon.
 
Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until just combined. 

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. 

The cake should spring back when touched in the center. Any little cracks won't matter because...

 









We suggest that you serve the gingerbread with gobs of whipped cream...

 

Fatal Reservations will be in bookstores on July 7, but you can certainly order it now!

Spinach Ricotta Calzones @LucyBurdette

Lucy with her sister Sue

LUCY BURDETTE: Did any of the rest of you go through a hippie-ish phase in the 70's or 80's where you cooked a lot of recipes from the Moosewood cookbooks? I sure did, and it seems like some of them were seared into my brain--in a good way mostly. 

So last week when I was wondering what to do with the second half of my pizza dough, which was lounging in the fridge, I remembered: calzones! This isn't the exact recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook, but it takes off from their version.

Ingredients

1 recipe pizza dough

1 package frozen, chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
8 oz ricotta cheese
4 oz mozzarella, shredded 
1/2 onion, chopped
1 Tbsp fresh dill, chopped
salt and pepper to taste


Saute the onion in a little olive oil until soft. 

Place cheeses in a big bowl, add the onion, the dill, and the spinach--which should be squeezed dry. (Don't be afraid to use your hands.) Mix well.


Divide the dough into four sections and roll them out into circles. Divide the filling four ways and mound it in the dough circles. 

 

Wet the edges of the dough and fold it over. Press together with a fork and make a few holes in the center of the half-moons to let out the steam.

Bake in a 450 oven for about 15 minutes. You can serve these alone or with a little marinara sauce, and a green salad.

MURDER WITH GANACHE, the fourth Key West mystery, is in stores now. DEATH WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS will be out in December.

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Orange Poppyseed Cake

LUCY BURDETTE: I wonder how many of you were crazy about cooking from the Moosewood cookbooks? As you can tell from my battered copies, I cut my cooking teeth on the Moosewoods. Every once in a while I remember a lovely recipe and go back to look it up--and tweak, of course.

This time I was looking for a cake/coffee cake recipe that would freeze well and serve a lot of people. We were anticipating spending a long weekend celebrating my mother-in-law's 100th birthday, and I was organizing a breakfast. I wanted to bring a few homemade items to make it special. Below is a picture of the birthday girl (seated on left) with her four daughters-in-law, me on left. (And by the way, her secret to longevity? Stay busy, eat good food, everything in moderation!)

So, to the good food...First I made granola (recipe here.) Next, poppyseeds were calling to me, as I'd bought a big bag of them at a natural foods store (and honestly, my husband was doubting that they'd get used...)

This cake is adapted from the original Moosewood Cookbook's Ukranian poppyseed cake, with less butter, more seeds, and orange instead of lemon flavoring.

 


Ingredients

1 and 1/2 sticks of butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1 cup poppyseeds
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp grated orange rind
1/2 orange, juice squeezed
1 cup milk

Heat the milk to almost boiling, add the poppyseeds, and let the mixture cool.

Beat the butter with the sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each. Beat in the vanilla and the orange and orange zest. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Now add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with milk/seed mixture, beating lightly after each addition.

Scrape the batter into a well-oiled bundt pan. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let the cake cool for ten minutes, then invert onto a plate.

When it first comes out of the pan, it doesn't look like much--all dark and speckled. But this cake is good enough to be served for dessert--add a little ice cream if you must!

Lucy's Key West food critic mysteries can be found wherever books are sold! Follow Lucy on Twitter and "like" her on Facebook.