Mango-Cherry-Coconut Upside-Down Cake

I've decided to try to turn every fruit I encounter into an upside-down cake.  I guess I like upside-down cakes because I get a little thrill out of waiting to see how they'll turn out once I invert them...yeah, my life is THAT exciting.  This is kind of a crazy fiesta of flavors, but it works for me.  The recipe follows the same basic formula as my Plum Upside-Down Cake, but the flavor goes a really different direction.

The Ingredients:

4 T margarine

½ c brown sugar

1 large or 2 small mangos, sliced

2 cups pitted sweet cherries

1 packed cup unsweetened coconut flakes, divided

2 ½ c flour

1 ½ c sugar

¼ c cornstarch

1 ½ t baking powder

1 t baking soda

¾ t salt

1 ½ c coconut milk

2/3 c oil

1 T vanilla

3/4 t coconut extract

The Process:

• Preheat oven to 350.
• While oven is heating, melt margarine in a 9x13 baking pan.  Sprinkle brown sugar over melted margarine. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of the coconut flakes, then arrange mango slices and cherries on top. It will look something like this:

Whisk together dry ingredients.  In a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients.  Add dry to wet, and stir until just combined. Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup coconut flakes.

Pour batter into pan, and bake about 50-55 minutes.

Let cool about 10 minutes, then invert onto a cookie sheet.  Ta-Da!

Artichoke-Mushroom Petso

Mushrooms, artichokes, and pesto are 3 of my top 5 favorite foods, so it made sense to me to just combine them all into one delicious dip.  I ate this slathered on slices of garlicky ciabatta, but I think it would also be delicious with pasta.

The Ingredients:
1/2 c olive oil, divided
5 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed with the flat side of a knife
4 c sliced crimini mushrooms
1/2 t salt
2 packed cups basil

1 1/2 c artichoke hearts (canned, cooked from frozen, or cooked from fresh--but rinse them if using canned)

3/4 c walnuts, toasted

1/4 c nutritional yeast

1 T lemon juice


The Process:

1. Heat 2-3 T olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Add garlic, mushrooms and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are softened, about 6 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, pulse together basil, walnuts, remaining olive oil, nutritional yeast, and lemon juice in a food processor until basil leaves are well-chopped. Add artichokes and pulse several more times to incorporate.  Add cooked mushrooms with all their juices, and pulse about 15 more times.  Serve right away or put it in a jar with an airtight lid to keep it from turning brown.

Plum Upside-Down Cake

Oh, man, this is good.  Amaretto and gobs of sugar, balanced out by the tartness of fresh plums.  If you don't have amaretto, you could use more almond milk instead, and add a little almond extract.

The ingredients:

4 T margarine

½ c brown sugar

12-16 pitted plums, halved

2 ½ c flour

1 ½ c sugar

¼ c cornstarch

1 ½ t baking powder

1 t baking soda

¾ t salt

1 ½ c almond milk

2/3 c oil

½ c amaretto

1 T vanilla

The Process:

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. While oven is heating, melt margarine in a 9x13 baking pan.  Sprinkle brown sugar over melted margarine, and arrange plums on top.

3. Whisk together dry ingredients.  In a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients.  Add dry to wet, and stir until just combined.

4. Pour batter over plums, and bake about 50 minutes.

5. Let cool about 10 minutes, then invert onto a cookie sheet.

Plum Fruit Leather

This little non-recipe has turned out to be a great way to preserve some of my plum surplus, especially the ones that were too ripe for canning.

Simply blend pitted plums with a splash of lemon juice (and some agave if you want a sweet fruit leather), pour onto lightly-oiled dehydrator trays (either use commercial inserts designed for the purpose, or line dehydrator trays with plastic wrap), and dry for about 10-12 hours.

One caution: the flavor gets more tart as it dries, so make the mixture in the blender sweeter than you think you want it.

Canned Plums

 

 I love plums, but I sort of resent the fact that they always ripen during the hottest week of the year.  I hate to see them go to waste, though, so I spent a muggy morning standing over the boiling canner, putting up plums in light syrup and a gingery plum chutney.  This weekend I'll be experimenting with pickled plums and plum fruit leather.  I'm starting to think my hands might always be sticky and stained purple.

Camp cooking

I just returned from a long weekend in Yosemite, where I mostly subsisted on bagels and peanut butter, but I did make a nice-ish dinner over the campfire one night:

I marinated these mushrooms in liquid aminos and a little sesame oil, and cooked them in a cast-iron skillet until they started to char.  They were fantastic.  I also made some broccoli using the same method, that was so delicious I forgot to get out the camera.

 The garlic bread was more singed than I was aiming for, but was still mostly-edible.