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In a small bowl stir together oil, honey, maple syrup and vanilla. Pour over dry ingredients. With two spoons, mix until all dry ingredients are moistened. Spread in a roasting pan. Bake in a 300 degree oven. Stir after 30 minutes. Stir again every 15 minutes until granola is an even golden brown. Cool on newspaper or in the pan, stirring to keep from clumping. Store in an airtight container. Lasts several weeks.
Curried Lentil Soup
I got this recipe from my daughter, Linden, who got it from a chef in Maryland. It’s a great, comforting winter soup.
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1 quart dried red lentils
3 1/2 quarts chicken stock or water, or mixture of the two
1 can peeled, chopped tomatoes
1 small onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons chopped fresh garlic
2 teaspoons chopped fresh ginger
2 rounded tablespoons Madras curry powder
1 tablespoon salt
1 lemon, juiced.
Sour cream (optional)
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Rinse lentils. Place in large pot with chicken stock or water and bring to a simmer. In a skillet, sauté onion in olive oil until transluscent. Add garlic, ginger and curry powder. Saute for 30 seconds. Add these ingredients and salt to lentils. Cook at low simmer for about an hour. Lentils should be very tender and flavors mixed.
In batches, put soup in food processor. Blend until smooth. Add fresh lemon juice. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve topped with dollop of sour cream.
Note from daughter, Linden:
This soup has a wonderful creamy texture, with very little fat. We eat it with crusty bread, which we dip in the soup - yum!
Salmon Mousse
This is my husband, Les’s, recipe. A hit hors d’oeuvre at parties. He doesn’t remember where he got it. It’s written on the back of a jewelry store envelope so old, the store has disappeared.
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4 small cans salmon or two large--cleaned
2 eight oz. pkg. cream cheese, or 1 pkg cream cheese and 8 oz sour cream
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons grated onion
4 tablespoons horse radish
salt to taste
1 tsp. liquid smoke
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Blend all in cuisinart until smooth and creamy. Refrigerate. Serve with Melba toast or toasted baguette rounds.
Easy Chocolate Cake
If you have company coming, this is an easy cake to make and ice. The presentation is not great, but the appreciation more than makes up for it. This is my version of several recipes I’ve tried using Hershey’s syrup (I know, I know, but try it).
Cake
Butter and flour a 9” x 13” x 2” pan
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
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1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 16-oz can of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup self-rising flour, mixed with 1/4 teaspoon salt.
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Using mixer, blend butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until blended. Add chocolate syrup and vanilla and blend well.
Turn off mixer. Using a large spoon or spatula, fold in flour, a little at a time. Be gentle. Stir only enough to blend or cake will be tough.
Pour into prepared pan. Shake gently to even batter.
Bake for 30 minutes on lower middle rack. After 15, reverse pan in oven.
Do not over-bake. Let cake cool in pan.
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Icing
In glass bowl, place
2 cups dark chocolate chips
1 cup whipping cream
2 teaspoons instant coffee
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Microwave in 30 second increments, stirring after each, until chocolate is melted and icing is smooth. Spread icing over cooled cake and cut into squares. Serve with ice cream. Enough for 12-16.
Chocolate Angel Cake
This was our special family cake. My mother baked it only for our birthdays. She persuaded a friend to teach me how to drive by promising him one of these. It’s trouble, but worth it.
Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees
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11 egg whites (room temperature--out of refrigerator for at least one hour)
1 1/4 cups sugar - sifted 5 times
3/4 cup cake flour - sifted 5 times
1/4 cup cocoa- added to flour and sifted five times
1/4 teaspoon salt - sifted with flour
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla
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Whip egg whites until they are frothy. Add cream of tartar.
Beat at medium speed until whites form soft peaks. Add sugar gradually while beating until whites are thickened and soft droopy peaks form. Beat in vanilla.
Fold in flour, cocoa, salt mixture with a rubber spatula 1/4 at a time .Fold gently, just enough to blend, or the cake will be tough. Pour into an un-greased angel cake pan.* Shake pan gently to remove air and level batter.
Bake at 325 degrees. Done when cake retracts a bit from pan and springs back when touched lightly--45 to 50 minutes. Let cool completely, upside down in pan
To remove, run tip of knife around outer edge of pan and middle and invert over cake plate.
ICING
Chill bowl you will whip cream in and keep it in larger bowl of ice and water while icing cake.
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3 half-pints of whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa, dissolved in a little hot water
Add sugar and cocoa and whip until cream holds shape.
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ASSEMBLY
Cool cake in refrigerator. Cut across twice, making three layers. Brush away loose crumbs. Place pieces of waxed paper under edge of cake to keep plate clean while icing.
Ice between layers, on top and sides with whipped cream
Refrigerate in covered cake holder. Serves 12
The best cake I ever remember eating
*Don’t use an angel food cake pan that has ever been greased, no matter how thoroughly washed. The cake will not rise (or that’s what I was told).
Christmas Eggnog
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10 eggs*
1 quart whipping cream
10 Tablespoons bourbon
10 Tablespoons sugar
freshly grated nutmeg
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Separate eggs
Beat yolks until frothy. Gradually add half of the sugar. While beating, gradually add the bourbon and beat until eggs are thick and lemon colored (at least 5 minutes). Refrigerate.
Beat egg whites until stiff with remainder of sugar
Whip cream.
Fold egg whites into yellows. Fold whip cream into all, stirring just enough to blend.
Serve in punch bowl sprinkled with nutmeg.
This is a thick, dessert eggnog, which almost has to be eaten with a spoon. My mother, Norma Watkins, made it only at Christmas, and nobody could handle more than one cup. It’s that rich.
A Mississippi recipe from the 1940’s.
*Nobody worried about raw eggs. We figured the bourbon purified everything.
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