Pumpkin Roll Dessert
Halloween is fast approaching, and pumpkins have flooded the markets. Around now, the price should be approaching rock bottom!
To make this recipe, you need a jelly-roll pan. It is like a cookie sheet, only the sides are just a little bit higher. You also need a clean cloth dishtowel.
You think you can’t do this, but you can. And once you have done it, a whole new and fabulous realm of desserts opens up before you. Chocolate with mint stuffing, Raspberry with blueberry stuffing – oh, the possibilities are endless.
It’s simpler than it looks. You will laugh when you have done your first, laugh at all your anxieties. Woooo Hoooooo, you did it!
Pumpkin Cheesecake Roll
This is a great Thanksgiving or Christmas dessert when you are sick of the same-old same-old desserts. Plus, one of these old fashioned rolled desserts always looks very elegant!
(Photo courtesy Allrecipes.com)
Cake:
Powdered sugar
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup chopped walnuts
Filling:
1 package cream cheese
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
6 Tablespoons softened butter
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
Powdered sugar
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 15” x 10” jelly roll pan. Line with waxed paper, grease and flour paper (there is a reason!) Sprinkle a flat tea towel or dish cloth (flat woven, not terry cloth) with powdered sugar.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt in small bowl. Beat eggs and sugar in a larger mixer bowl until thick. Beat in pumpkin, stir in the flour mixture. Spread evenly in prepared jelly roll pan, sprinkle with chopped nuts.
Bake 13 – 15 minutes or until top of cake springs back when touched. Immediately loosen and turn cake out of pan onto prepared tea-towel. Carefully peel off paper. Roll up cake and towel together, starting with narrow end. Cool on wire rack.
Beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter and vanilla in small mixer bowl until smooth. Carefully unroll cake, remove towel, and spread cream cheese mixture over cake. Roll cake back up again (it will want to be in the rolled position after cooling that way) Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.
Nanaimo Bars – A Cool Weather Treat
Nanaimo Bars – a Pacific Northwest Speciality
Makes about 25 small squares
Mom sent me several recipes for these, but this is the one that works – except In Florida, Doha, Kuwait, etc where the climate is hot.These are truly a Pacific Northwest specialty; they melt too easily in heat and humidity! On a cool day – or in a seriously air conditioned house – you can make these incredibly delicious treats.
Bottom Layer:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
5 Tablespoons cocoa powder
1 egg, beaten
1 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
Middle Layer:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
3 Tablespoons whipping cream
2 Tablespoons vanilla-custard powder (pudding)
2 cups powdered sugar
Top Layer:
4 squares (1 oz. each) semisweet chocolate
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1. For bottom layer, melt butter, granulated sugar and cocoa powder together in the top of a double boiler over simmering water. Add the egg and stir constantly until thickened, about 2 – 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir into graham cracker crumbs, coconut and almonds. Press firmly into an ungreased 8 x 8 inch pan.
2. For middle layer, cream butter, whipping cream, vanilla custard powder and powdered sugar together. Beat until light. Spread over bottom layer.
3. For top layer, melt chocolate and butter over low heat. Cool. When cool, but still liquid, pour over second layer and chill in refrigerator about 15 minutes, then cut into bars. (These bars can be made 3 – 4 days in advance and kept covered and refrigerated.)
Special Occasions: Cream Puffs and Profiteroles
Cream Puffs
Cream Puffs got me through a lot of guest dinners. They look so amazing, they taste so good, and they are really easy to make. So give it a try, and have fun.
The secret is taking the top off while they are still hot, and pulling out the filiments of excess dough so it doesn’t steam the puff from within and wilt it. They are so easy, we even taught them to kids in a summer fun program when we lived in Tunisia. They loved putting the whipped cream in (I think more got in the kids than in the creme puffs)
1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
4 eggs
Heat oven to 400°F/ 200°C. Heat water and butter to strong rolling boil. Stir in flour, stir vigorously over low heat about one minute or until mixture forms a ball. (You’ll know it when you see it.)
Remove from heat, beat in eggs, all at one time, continue beating and beating until smooth. Drop dough by Tablespoons 3” apart onto UNGREASED baking sheet. Bake 35 – 40 minutes or until puffed and golden. Cool away from drafts. Cut off tops, pull out filaments of dough inside.
When ready to serve, fill with Creme Chantilly, put the top on, and drizzle chocolate syrup over top and down the sides. Gorgeous!
Creme Chantilly
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sifted powdered (sometimes called confectioners) sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Whip the whipping cream until just stiff, quickly fold in the powdered sugar and vanilla extract.
Chocolate Syrup
3 Tablespoons Hershey’s cocoa powder
1 Tablespoon butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 Tablespoon(s) HOT water
Mix together cocoa powder and butter, and melt over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in 1 cup powdered sugar and 1 Tablespoon hot water. Beat until smooth. Only add more hot water if it is too thick; needs to be “drizzle-able”.
Profiteroles
Profiteroles are very small cream puffs, just smaller balls, same dough, cooked, covered with the same chocolate syrup. Instead of serving one cream puff, you serve maybe six small profiteroles.
Spaghetti Sauce
In our family, one of the first things you learn to make when you start cooking is spaghetti sauce. It couldn’t be easier, and you can make a double batch and freeze half and have it again in a couple weeks (thawed, of course.)
Chop one large onion, saute over low heat in olive oil. While the onion is sauteeing, peel and chop four or five cloves of garlic. Toss them is just before the onion is all soft and glistening. (Garlic needs less cooking than onion.)
Empty the saute pan into a bowl, and brown about 1 lb (1/2 kilo) of ground beef. If you want to take an extra step, also add in some ground Italian sausage (you can find it at the Sultan Center.) Brown it until there is no pink left, but the meat is still soft.
Pour the hot browned meat into a large pot. Add the sauteed onions. Chop up some tomatoes, real tomatoes that don’t look good enough for the salad. Having some real tomato in the sauce makes all the difference.
Add three or more small packets of tomato paste (small cans in the US) and four cups of water. It will look kind of soupy. Don’t worry! (In the US or countries where you can drink alcohol, use some red wine in place of some of the water, maybe a cup, for taste.)
Over low heat, cook the spaghetti meat sauce for hours – maybe three – until it has become less soupy and more sauc-y.
Fifteen minutes before serving, add 1 Tablespoon sugar.
The above is a very plain, very basic, but delicious spaghetti sauce. If you like flavors a little more complex, you can add in fifteen fresh chopped basil leaves when you add the sugar and stir them in well.
You can add a chopped green pepper to the onion when sauteeing.
You can add other meats, chopped finely.
Once you have mastered the basic sauce, you can customize it to your own tastes.
How easy is that?
Kuwaiti Shrimp Spaghetti
This looks so plain, and it tastes so good. It’s especially good with Kuwaiti shrimp in season – I’ve never seen such big shrimp, and Adventure Man says he thinks they are the best tasting shrimp in the world.
You need really good olive oil. You need as much garlic as you can handle (think building up your immunities for the cold season to come) and fresh washed cilantro. You need some fresh walnuts or pine nuts. If you are using walnuts, break them with your fingers, you don’t want them too small. Saute:
Clean the shrimp. (Or pay a little extra and have them cleaned at the fish market or Sultan Center) Make a thin slice down the back and pull out that unsightly intestine. (They say it causes no harm, but . . .better safe, and it looks a whole lot nicer) Check the pan, is everything lightly sizzling? Add the shrimp!
Saute that shrimp until just pink, just cooked through, but still soft and juicy.
Drain your cooked spaghetti (hint: break the spaghetti strands into halfs or even thirds for easier eating if you are eating with others) and quickly put it back in the cooking pot. Put it back on the burner, turned off but still warm, and add the olive oil, shrimp, etc. Use a wooden spoon and get at all out of the frying pan, and stir it well into the pasta.
Spoon into bowls. Most people don’t put cheese on a seafood pasta, but if you have a really good parmesan, freshly grated . . . we won’t tell! 😉 Salt to taste.
Did I tell you the Qatteri Cat won’t eat meat? He makes an exception for sardines, tuna water, and SHRIMP. As none of these seem to be very good for him, he only gets a little, now and then, as a special treat:
Bon appetite!
Tuna Tunisienne
I didn’t dare publish this photo before the day’s fast had ended. Doesn’t it look just yummy?
We all know what tuna salad is all about, right? A can of tuna, maybe some pickle, and some mayo, slosh it on the bread and you’re done? If you’re getting fancy, you can grill it?
When I moved to Tunisia, I learned a whole new way to eat tuna – I still add the sweet pickle, but now, I also add a LOT of parsley, a little lemon juice, some finely chopped onion, coarse pepper and salt, and then, just a little mayo.
It has a fresh flavor. You can taste all the individual tastes, but together they are magnificent. If you have any capers, you can throw them in, too. C’est magnifique!
This is how the Tunisians fix their tunafish, in a very common appetizer dish called brik (breek), probably distantly related to the Turkish borek. Sometimes made with just egg, sometimes with tuna and egg, it was the inspiration for my own tuna salad sandwich.
I can actually make brik, but there is no substitute for fresh Tunisian brik, made in Tunisia, with the special very thin brik skins that fry up thin and crisp in the best Tunisian olive oil. The photo is from PromoTunisia.
“Middle Eastern” Honey Cake
This recipe was from a paper in Monterey, California, and was called Middle Eastern Honey Cake. I have never seen it in any country I have lived in or been to in the Middle East, and none of my friends in the Middle East have ever had anything like it. . . I almost wonder if it is East European?
But it is a treasure, because it is fast, and easy, and totally DELICIOUS!
(This recipe, the icing is more honey colored)
“Middle Eastern” Honey Cake
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups unsifted flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1. Combine sugar, oil, honey, eggs and vanilla. Mix until well blended. Add combined dry ingredients to oil mixture, alternately with milk, mixing well after each addition.
2. Pour batter into greased floured 9” square pan. Bake at 350 degrees 40 – 45 minutes or until wooden pick comes out clean. Cool. Frost with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting
Honey Cream Cheese Frosting
2 Tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
4 Tablespoons honey
sprinkle salt
Blend well.
How can anything so simple be so good? I usually double the recipe and freeze one to pull out when unexpected guests show up. Sometimes I use that black honey that comes from Egypt, and if I can get it, I use Yemeni honey.
Watermelon Sorbet
Sorbet is so simple, and so good, and not so bad for you. The first time I fixed this, we were living in Tunisia. It tasted so good on a hot summer’s evening. It will be icy and grainy, not smooth. The Italians call it “granita”.
The watermelon available right now in Kuwait is perfect, so intensely flavorful. Try it!
3 cups water
1 cup sugar
4 cups seeded, chopped watermelon
1/4 cup lime juice
Bring the water and sugar to a boil over high heat and stir until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and cool.
In several batches, blend watermelon pieces and sugar syrup in a blender until smooth. Stir in lime juice, chill 2 hours in refrigerator.
Pour into ice cream maker and freeze according to instructions. It’s best if served fresh, so start the ice cream maker when you sit down to dinner, and it will finish just as you are ready for dessert.
EXTRA: You can blend up the leftover watermelon for a delicious refreshing summer drink. Serve with a sprig of mint, if you are growing any.
Apples and Honey Mustard
This is one of my favorite mid-morning snacks. It also works as a last-minute delicacy you can set out when friends show up unexpectedly. As good as it tastes, I hate to tell you, it is also good for you.
Slice apple into eighths. Cut out seeds. Mix 1 Tablespoon honey (some great Yemeni honey is best) with 3 Tablespoons mustard. Place in small bowl, arrange apple slices around bowl, serve! Did it even take 5 minutes? No!
Use a good mustard:
Monsieur Fallot’s mustard is, amazingly, available in Kuwait at the Sultan Centre stores.
Summer Fruit Crisps
If you haven’t cooked before, and are interested in beginning, Crisps are a good place to start. They are easy, don’t take a lot of time, and you get instant – and delicious! – gratification. Now, while fresh fruit is abundant in Kuwait (and elsewhere) is a great time to try a crisp.
These recipes are from Mary Cullen’s Northwest Cook Book, 1946. My aunt gave it to me before she died, and some of my best cooking efforts have been based on recipes from this book. They are simple, but . . . simply GOOD!
Apple Crisp
Crisps are wonderful when made with fresh fruit, and not so much trouble as a pie requiring crusts. Here, the topping is delicious, and easy.
5 cups apples
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon or nutmeg
Peel, core and slice apples and place in a greased baking dish or cassarole (a ceramic pie dish is perfect, but you can also use a ramekin, or something not too deep, not too shallow).
Using a pastry blender, or a metal whisk, or an electric mixer, work together the butter, sugar, salt, flour and spices.
Pack closely around apples.
Bake in 425 degree oven for 45 – 50 minutes. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.
Berry Crisp or Peach / Apricot / Plum Crisp
Substitute berries (peaches or apricots or plums) for apples. If berries are very tart, sprinkle with 1/2 cup sugar mixed with 1/2 cup flour before covering with crumb mixture.
Rhubarb Crisp
Use diced rhubarb in place of apples. Mix 1/2 to 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup flour with rhubarb before placing in baking dish.
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