Somebody's Grandma's Spice Cake

I used pear sauce and carob in this revamp of an old family recipe, which happens to be completely vegan!

Well, holy crow it's been a while since I've been able to post! With the flurry of activity around here the past few weeks, cooking, baking and writing for the blog had to take a bit of a backseat, so here's hoping the worst of the craziness is past (except for exams... I have no control over those). In the past month, both my stepsister and stepsister-in-law had beautiful baby girls, we had Thanksgiving and Halloween, I got my exam schedule and started my term papers - all of which come with time constraints and stress! When I finally did get into the kitchen, I knew 100% it was going to be in order to make some comfort food.

I've written before about my mom's "black box" collection of recipe cards and cache of cookbooks - some gleaned from family and friends, others clipped from newspapers and magazines. Almost none of the handwritten cards have a source, but given the time it would have taken to compile the collection I'm confident that each one had special meaning.

This cake was simply titled "Nana's Applesauce Cake". Neither I, nor anyone I know in my family, have ever called our grandmothers "Nana", but apparently somewhere down the line there was such a woman making a spicy, dense, moist ring cake with applesauce. With a boatload of pureed, lightly sweetened pears in my freezer (left over from the days of Ruby Pears in a Golden Cage), I saw this cake as the perfect opportunity to use them up, and take a little twist on tradition as I went along. The neat thing about this recipe is that it was always a 100% vegan and part whole grain recipe - why, I don't know (except maybe economics played a factor), but they definitely don't have any negative impact on the flavour or texture of the cake. I did add a dash of vanilla, and cut down the sugar a bit, but I also decided to use carob in place of the cocoa in the original. Carob has a somewhat fruity flavour going for it, which I thought would work well with the fruit in the batter.

I tried to get a photo of it sliced when I took it to work, but (as with all staff rooms) good food simply doesn't linger! I do promise you though that the crumb is dark, moist and definitely indulgent, perfect for pairing with a cuppa on a cold Fall day.

Somebody's Grandma's Spice Cake
Makes 1 large tube cake, 16 slices

6 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp vanilla
3 1⁄2 cups sweetened pear or applesauce
1⁄2 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp nutmeg
1⁄4 tsp cloves
1 tbsp cinnamon
⅓ cup carob powder
1⁄2 tsp salt
1 ⅓ cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 ⅓ cups whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
½ cup raisins
½ cup diced dried apple

1. Heat oven to 350F and grease a 12-cup tube pan.
2. In a bowl, beat together oil, vanilla, applesauce, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, carob, salt and sugar.
3. Add flours and baking soda, beating well.
4. Mix in the dried fruit.
5. Bake at 350 for about an hour or until toothpick comes out clean.

• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 260.1

• Total Fat: 5.4 g
• Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
• Sodium: 3.7 mg
• Total Carbs: 52.4 g
• Dietary Fiber: 3.2 g
• Protein: 3.1 g

Potato Spinach Frittata

Cheese and eggs combined with roasted potatoes, spinach and tomatoes make for a fantastic all-in-one meal. It's no beauty but my Grade 7s and is ate it up!

Eggs are a tricky sell - to kids and adults. Growing up, I would eat eggs one of three ways: scrambled with gratuitous amounts of cheese, as an omelette with cheese and some kind of meat (chorizo was the bomb) or fried, sunny-side-up style, in butter. Plain scrambled eggs held absolutely zero pull for me (and lets not even get into hard boiled ones - I still can't stand their smell). Nowadays, the only person I know who actually likes eggs without anything but a splash of milk is my sister. Everyone else either won't eat them or has to add tons of ingredients for flavour and texture.

The lesson plans I wrote for my older Home Ec students were intended to teach them how to cook actual meals for themselves and their families, as they'll be off to high school soon. Hedging my bets that I could convert some of the "egg haters" by adding other elements they did like, I came up with a variation on both an Italian frittata and a Spanish tortilla - a stovetop frittata packed with spinach, potatoes and cheese. While I thought the spinach was a bit of a crapshoot for my traditionally veggie-phobic students - it was so green - I got no complaints either before or after they had their meal. I will admit, though, that the potatoes were the key ingredient - every kid there loves them. Regardless, the plates were cleaned - it's hard to argue with potatoes and cheese on any scale, and the eggs just hold everything together. The one thing I will emphasize is that salt is especially important here - between the potatoes, spinach, tomato and eggs, there isn't enough from the cheese alone. Pepper, however, is to taste. The student I had measuring the pepper added a half tablespoon to the mix in place of the half teaspoon indicated in their copy of the recipe - the results were by no means inedible, but they did require a lot of requests for water!

The few leftovers I had, I brought home to my mom. She's not a huge egg eater either, but like the kids if you add enough yummy things to them it's simply a bland binder. The pepper was a surprise, but again, not overpowering, and when served alongside a slice of that week's Cranberry, Walnut and Wild Rice Loaf  it made for a very satisfying lunch indeed!

Basil and Lemon Balm Pesto

Nut free, vegan, soy free and gluten free - this garlicky basil-lemon balm pesto has it all!

Confession: I'm not that into pesto. Something about the nuts (I hate pine nuts as a rule, and walnuts aren't really our thing either) and the over-processed, super-oily herbs always turned me off of the storebought stuff, so when I encountered it on a restaurant menu I naturally avoided it. The other thing I found about pesto (similar to commercial hummus) is that it simply wasn't garlicky enough. I eat garlic like crazy, and since the overwhelming oiliness and pine nut bitterness always seemed to dominate I never got more than a whisper of it when it was in a bowl of pasta.

However, as I began cooking for myself and growing my own herbs, I realized that the basil-oil-pine nut-cheese formula was a guideline, not a hard and fast rule. I also realized that what should happen with pesto, what doesn't usually happen with the jars on the shelf, is that the herbs should be the stars. Sure, cheese and nuts are nice, and fruity olive oil is delicious, but with lackluster herbs (or poor treatment of good ones) there is nothing that will make the paste worth indulging in.

I had to put the garden to bed this past weekend, which meant hauling out all the dead tomato plants (*tear*) and cutting back the herbs. This gave me a lot of fresh basil and lemon balm, more than I could scatter on pasta or make tea with for a lifetime, so I thought I would combine the two to make a pesto perfect for the upcoming holiday season. In place of nuts (which some of my friends can't eat) I used sunflower seeds, added a lot of extra garlic and a dash of lemon juice to keep the colours and the flavours vibrant. I had initially intended to add nutritional yeast instead of cheese (which I can't eat), but got so into tasting and making sure the consistency was what I was looking for that I simply forgot to add it. The flavour didn't suffer - in fact the herbs popped even more, and by using just a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in the balance of canola I got the flavour without the overwhelming fruitiness. I opted to keep the pesto on the thicker side, so that when it was added to something like pasta the cooking water would loosen it to the proper texture without being oily or soupy. A tiny scoop mixed with freshly cooked rice and roasted carrots (the carrot and beet glut is another story!) needed no extra liquid at all, and I thoroughly enjoyed the fresh, slightly citrusy flavour I got, with a definite pop of garlic and just a whisper of olive.

Are you a pesto fan? What's your favourite kind?

Habitant Pea Soup #SundaySupper

Nothin' better than a nice warm bowl of homemade, vegan Habitant soup! Comfort food plus... And it's both good for you and your wallet to boot!

Habitant soup and I go way back. In fact, its one of the first soups I ever remember eating - curled up on the couch with a pepper shaker and splitting the whole can of soup with Grandpa. Bowls of it got me though the chicken pox, countless ear infections and flus, even a nasty bout of mononucleosis in highschool, and none of my friends could understand the allure. In fact, my mom's family and I were the only people I knew growing up who would eat it... everyone else's loss, I say. After all, it was essentially soft-cooked, stewed yellow peas in a bowl - old people food.

But for me, it wasn't just peas in a bowl. Something about its buttery flavour (accented perfectly with lashings of black pepper), the soft-yet-textured body and its ability to warm you all the way through and fill you for more than an hour earned the soup a special place in my heart. The French Canadians had it right with this recipe, and somehow the care and love the original cooks back in the 1800s put into their pots translated through time (and cans) to our table.

Sadly, being an old, French Canadian recipe, my beloved yellow cans contain lard - something my digestive system can no longer handle. I had tried other, vegan split pea soups, but the texture was off and flavour lacking. I knew whole peas and simple flavours were the way to go, and after searching for what felt like eons I came on a recipe by a Canadian canning company. I was confident that, having been written by a Canadian, it would be as close to the "real stuff" as possible. I did have to ixnay the pesky ham, though, and I wanted to accent the savoury flavours, so I took a leaf out of  Bryanna Clark Grogan’s recipe and added allspice and liquid smoke, plus cumin because I love it.

The key to getting the consistency of silky puree with bits of pea while adding the flavour from the carrot and onion was to add the vegetables "stock style" - leaving them in big chunks and removing them like the bay leaf after they've given up their essential nuances. The tiny bit of liquid smoke nailed the hint of bacony aroma from the original, all while keeping the recipe oil free. The best part was that it made a bunch and canned perfectly in my pressure canner, so I put up a bunch of pints (perfect "for one" size) to enjoy over the winter. I can't wait to make it again - it's pure comfort food.

Speaking of comfort food, our #SundaySupper gang is all about the comforting soup and stews this week. Be sure to check out all the offerings below, and say hi!

Do you have a soup that evokes special memories for you? Let me know in the comments!

 Superb Soups

• “Make it Your Own” Soup Bar by The Freshman Cook
• Baked Potato Soup by That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Cabbage and Kielbasa Soup by Our Good Life
• Chicken and Dumplings by Palatable Pastime
• Easy Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup by Pies and Plots
• Gnocchi, Sausage & Spinach Soup by Bottom Left of the Mitten
• Habitant Pea Soup by What Smells So Good?
• Instant Pot Mexican Chicken and Rice Soup by Sunday Supper Movement
• Meatball and Orzo Soup by Fantastical Sharing of Recipes

Stupendous Soups

• Milchnudeln (German Milk Noodles) by Tara’s Multicultural Table
• Mushroom Fennel Soup by Caroline’s Cooking
• Pasta Fagioli Soup by Soulfully Made
• Slow Cooker Black Bean Chili by Cricket’s Confections
• Crock Pot Chicken Posole by My Imperfect Kitchen
• Slow Cooker Smoky Chicken-Potato Soup by The Weekend Gourmet
• Spicy Lentil Soup with Swiss Chard by Cooking Chat

Join the #SundaySupper conversation on twitter on Sunday! We tweet throughout the day and share recipes from all over the world. Our weekly chat starts at 7:00 pm ET. Follow the #SundaySupper hashtag and remember to include it in your tweets to join in the chat. To get more great Sunday Supper Recipes, visit our website or check out our Pinterest board. Would you like to join the Sunday Supper Movement? It’s easy. You can sign up by clicking here: Sunday Supper Movement.

Cranberry, Walnut and Wild Rice Loaf for #wbd2017

This crusty, delightfully chewy whole grain loaf is loaded with Canadian flavour, and is so hearty that a slice of two are great for packing on a hike or long car ride.

I can't believe it's been another year. I love the annual World Bread Day roundups by Zorra, and always do my best to come up with a loaf to share. I have to admit, though - I almost didn't make it this year! I'm in the middle of writing term papers for the first year of my sociology program at university (yup, back at the education thing again) and this blog (and cooking in general) has sadly been shifted to the back burner. It's not quite stuck in the warming drawer, but for a little while at least my posts definitely won't be as frequent.

However, when the school thing with all its deadlines, coupled with the work thing and it's responsibilities, gets just too much, I bust out the breadmaking routine. Nothing eases tension like crafting loaves of bread. Its such a soothing, creative process... and a tasty one at that. This time around I settled on a very "Canadian" themed loaf inspired by a chef on the TV channel Gusto. The original bread is a lofty boule with chopped walnuts and cooked wild rice. Mine, although it didn't rise as high, had the added flavour elements of flaxseed, dried cranberries and walnut oil, and uses less honey in favour of the addition of maple sugar. A slice of it, smeared with walnut-almond butter (we just mixed walnut and almond butters together) makes for a chewy, stick-to-your-ribs breakfast that's full of brain food for the day, Omega-3s and complex carbs to keep you going. For lunch, I ate the leftover wild rice with the dried cranberries, garlic and mushrooms, because why not?

The best part about this loaf is that its a big one, so I know that I'll have lots of leeway between bake fests. As much as I hate to put them off!

Cranberry, Walnut and Wild Rice Loaf
Makes one large loaf, 24 slices
1 cup warm water
1 ½ cups warm 1% milk
¼ cup honey
¼ cup maple sugar
2 tbsp walnut oil
2 cups flour
4 cups whole wheat bread flour
2 tbsp ground flaxseed
1 tbsp instant yeast
2 tsp salt
1 cup cooked wild rice, temperature
½ cup dried cranberries
1 cup finely chopped walnuts

1. Whisk together the water, milk, honey, sugar and oil in a cup, set aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the flours, flaxseed, yeast and salt.
3. Add the liquid ingredients and knead with the dough hook until smooth and elastic, about 8-10 minutes.
4. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 ½ hours.
5. Punch dough down and knead in rice and walnuts.
6. Shape into a round and place on a cornmeal-dusted, rimless cookie sheet.
7. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.
8. Heat the oven (ideally with a baking stone) to 375F.
9. Slide loaf off the sheet onto the stone (or place sheet in the oven) and bake ~50 minutes, until it registers 200F.
10. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 202.0
Total Fat: 5.7 g
Cholesterol: 1.3 mg
Sodium: 204.4 mg
Total Carbs: 34.5 g
Dietary Fiber: 3.6 g
Protein: 5.9 g

Didn't bake a bread but want to see all the goodies? Look out for the hashtags #wbd2017 #worldbreadday and #worldbreadday2017 on social media, and check out the founder Zorra's instagram at @zorrakochtopf! You can also follow me, you know - I'm right here.